They came to the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York, in August 1944.

Safe Haven was the only official U.S. Government activity to rescue Jewish refugees during the Second World War, for victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

They were deliberately chosen so that some incoming refugees were non-Jewish, so as to allay anti-semitic fears.

They were placed in Fort Ontario, behind barbed wire, and given no official status, and were told they would be returned to their homelands after the war, and would have no rights as regards entering the United States.

Due to political pressure, at the war's end they were allowed to stay in the United States.