the auctioneer, barry fossberg, had this steamer trunk put on consignment, and he noticed a sticker that said st. louis. he knew about the journey of the st. louis, so he called us and asked if we were interested in the trunk. he very generously purchased it from the consignor and donated it to the museum. it is one of our special artifacts here. by 1944, it was widely known that the holocaust was happening in europe. we were immersed in world war ii and the treasury secretary asked several of his aides to write a report on what the government was doing to help aid european jews. his aides wrote a long report after studying the subject. it was very explicit statement on what was happening. morgenthaler condensed this report and presented it to roosevelt, in several days later the refugee board was instituted to try to get people out of europe and give them refuge in america. more people went to england and other places. one of the phenomena that we saw was a lot of americans, jewish and not, started organizing and trying to figure out ways to get threatened people out of hostile territor