The SS St. Louis Virtual Museum

The St. Louis Permanent Archive – Virtual Museum Experience

Mission and Collaboration:
Preserve the Archive for Posterity

Collaborate with the SS St. Louis Legacy Project to bring the story of the St. Louis to a WORLDWIDE STUDENT BODY

The SS St. Louis Legacy Project, together with its University partners, announce their plan to create the first ever SS St. Louis Digital Museum that will be accessible to a worldwide constituency of students, academics, historians and researchers.

The story of the Voyage of the SS St. Louis is one of the most important events in American, Jewish and Holocaust history.  It can be studied in the context of US political history, anti-Semitism, diplomacy, international immigration and refugee policy and human rights.  It deeply resonates with today’s university students who are searching for lessons of the past to make sense of these contemporary issues.

Over the last decade, our foundation has brought our St. Louis documentary film and exhibit to over 20 universities around the US including Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Brandeis, George Washington, Maryland, Miami and others.  We have seen the impact on the minds of the students and our SS St. Louis Digital Museum will now be available to students and teachers worldwide.

Grouping the material from the Archive into relevant themes and placing them in portals for student and teacher access will be the primary goal of the collaboration between the University and the Foundation.  The development of curricula will supplement this initiative.

The saga of the St. Louis can be studied in the context of:

1. 1. Holocaust history and the antecedents to The Final Solution including the Nuremburg Laws, the Evian Conference, the saga of the SS St. Louis, the Wannsee Conference.
   2. National and international immigration and refugee policy using the saga of the St. Louis as an object lessons for the current immigration/refugee crisis.
   3. Government accountability in dealing with human rights issues and the catastrophic consequences of the political failure to act during a humanitarian crisis using the State Department and Canadian apologies as a platform for this discussion.
   4. Antisemitism, racist ideology and Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda and its relevance to contemporary examples of extreme political ideology and the consequences of hate speech.
   5. The Roosevelt Legacy and the Jews:

The digitization of the Archival Material will allow the University and the Foundation to create a platform by which The Virtual Museum Experience will be developed from the SS St. Louis Permanent Archive.

In addition to access to the Virtual Museum, the student constituency will have access to SS St. Louis Virtual programs which are being hosted by:

1. 1. Human rights organizations
   2. Holocaust education organizations
   3. International Jewish and communal organizations

The funding for the Virtual Museum will come from the following sources:

1. 1. Philanthropic and foundation funding
   2. Grants
   3. Naming rights and branding opportunities
   4. Licensing fees and royalties