Get started early with America’s 250th anniversary celebrationThursday anniversary with a New Year’s morning walk in one of the most important historical places in the center of New York.
Starting at 9:00 a.m., join old and new stewards of historic sites Fort OntarioPaul Lear and Matthew MacVittie, on a walking tour of the historic site.
The tour, held in collaboration with the Safe Haven Holocaust Shelter Museum, will pay special attention to the history of the 982 refugees who fled the Holocaust in Europe, they were housed at Fort Ontario from 1944 to 46 as guests of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The event starts and ends at the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum at 22 Barbara Donahue Drive in Oswego. The stop will be at the old stone fort, where refreshments will be served.
Fort Ontario exhibits will be open for viewing.
The walk and tour are free. All ages are welcome and no advanced registration is required. It will be held “rain or shine or in between,” Lear said. Walkers are encouraged to dress for the weather, including comfortable shoes and warm clothing.
The Safe Haven Holocaust Shelter Museum interprets the history of the 982 mostly Jewish Holocaust refugees brought to the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, NY, in August 1944.
It is hard to overstate the importance of Safe Haven in American history. It was the only camp for Holocaust refugees in the United States during World War II and resulted in a shift in the American media’s attitude to what was happening in Europe.
And stories about the Holocaust in American newspapers began to move to the front pages.
During their stay in Oswego, the fugitives were allowed to leave the fort for up to three hours, but were required to stay within the city limits of Oswego. Children attended local schools and spent the afternoon playing sports at the fort parade.
Refugees worked side by side with Oswego residents in the shelter, with locals becoming “the first advocates for refugees in a long but successful national movement against powerful anti-refugee and anti-Semitic pressure to return them to Europe at the end of the war,” Lear wrote.
“My memories of the fort and the people of Oswego are fond,” survivor Walter Greenberg told The Post-Standard in 2001. “I heard the sounds of life there, not the sounds of war. I was used to camouflage and khakis and bombs … I remember looking over that fence and seeing houses and children playing … it was a poor part of town, but it felt like a miracle.”
The refugee shelter just added to the Fort Ontario link.
Fort Ontario “has witnessed the ebb and flow of nations and empires, as well as the weather and power of the Great Lakes.”
The current fort is the fourth built on the site, built in the 1840s and used by the US Army as a training ground and active barracks during World War II. Earlier forts saw battles during the French and Indian War and the War of 1812.
DETAILS
Where: Meet at 22 Barbara Donahue Drive, Oswego
When: Thursday, New Year’s Day, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m
Pin: Free with no prior registration required.
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