MONTREAL — Jewish high school students will learn about the tragic story of the St. Louis and gain practical experience in radio production thanks to a $50,000 federal grant.

Herzliah grade 11 students Claudia Lasry and Daniel Sailofsky are among the students that will be making a 14-hour radio documentary on the St. Louis. With them are Radio Shalom president Robert Levy and Senator Judith Seidman.

The money is going to Radio Shalom CJRS, the Jewish community station at 1650AM, which will air 14 one-hour documentaries produced by Herzliah High School and Ecole Maïmonide students on the ill-fated refugee ship, under the title The Voyage of the MS St. Louis, a Radio Diary.

The St. Louis was a German ship that left Hamburg on May 13, 1939, headed for Cuba with 938 passengers, almost all of them Jews fleeing the Third Reich. Only 28 were admitted after they docked in Havana, and the U.S. government didn’t allow any to disembark when the ship landed in Miami a short time later, even though most had or were applying for U.S. visas.

The American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other Jewish organizations negotiated with Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and France to admit the refugees, and the St. Louis set sail back to Europe on June 6, 1939.

An attempt was made when the ship docked at Halifax to secure the passengers’ admission, but the Mackenzie King government refused.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 254 of the passengers eventually died in the Holocaust.

Conservative senator Judith Seidman announced the grant at Herzliah’s Snowdon campus last week, during a live Radio Shalom broadcast. The money is from Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Community Historical Recognition Program, a $25-million initiative launched in 2008 to fund community-based projects commemorating how ethnic groups were affected by Canadian wartime measures or immigration restrictions.

Seidman described Canada’s refusal to admit the St. Louis passengers “a great shame… a stain on Canada’s conscience… that must not be forgotten.”

Under the guidance of Radio Shalom host Howie Silbiger and their teachers, the students will research, produce and act as broadcasters. Seven of the shows will be in English and seven in French.

Silbiger said he’s aiming to have the first one aired in early March, and the series will probably continue monthly with one in each language.

In addition to the story of the St. Louis, the program will address the issues of antisemitism, racism and xenophobia.

Silbiger indicated the rejection of the St. Louis refugees was a consequence of a discriminatory immigration policy in the 1930s and ’40s. The documentaries will show how Canadian immigration and refugee policies have evolved since then.

Herzliah executive director Sidney Benudiz said the students will learn how “a democratic country can look back critically and try to correct the mistakes of the past… [and] the importance of not staying indifferent when there is injustice in the world.”

In addition to telling the story of the St. Louis, the programs are expected to deal with the contributions of the Jewish community to Canada and contemporary refugee and human rights issues.

At least 21 students from the Snowdon and St. Laurent Herzliah campuses, English and French sections, will be involved in the project, said Judaic studies director David Azerad. The number of Maïmonide students was not known at the time.