The University of Toledo is observing the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass — with the Sunday, Nov. 6, performance of “The Trial of FDR” in the Law Center McQuade Auditorium on Main Campus.

The play focuses on the controversy surrounding the voyage of the SS St. Louis, a ship carrying 937 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. The ship was turned away by Cuba and the U.S., forcing the asylum-seekers to return to Europe, something which had a knock-on effect on the Nazi campaign against the Jews.

The live docudrama puts President Franklin Roosevelt on trial for the decision to refuse U.S. entry to the asylum-seeking passengers.

Kristallnacht, in which Nazi vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues and homes caused the shattered glass from the violence to litter the streets, occurred in November 1938, several months before the voyage of the SS St. Louis.

“Kristallnacht and the voyage of the SS St. Louis were major turning points in the history of Nazi Germany’s persecution and systematic murder of Europe’s Jews in the Holocaust,” said Dr. Barry Jackisch, a visiting associate professor of history and director of UToledo’s Roger Ray Insitute for the Humanities. “This docudrama reminds us of the terrible consequences of discrimination, exclusion and hate that still resonate powerfully in our modern society.”

The free, public event will begin at 4:30 p.m. and is co-sponsored by the UToledo Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities and the College of Arts and Letters, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo’s Ruth Fajerman Markowicz Holocaust Resource Center.

Parking is free for this event in Area 12, near the Law Center.

For more information, visit the Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities webpage.