Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter

The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter, also known as "Safe Haven", located in Oswego, New York was the first and only refugee center established in the United States during World War II. From 1944 to 1945, the shelter housed 982 refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe, of whom 912 were Jewish and the others were not. The effort was called "Safe Haven". The refugee shelter is now the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum. The shelter was established by the War Refugee Board. Including non-Jewish refugees was a way for the Roosevelt Administration to make the project palatable to the American public.