Play brings Holocaust memories flooding back

Jeanette Schlesinger, left, portrays Anne Frank during the play “The Trial of Franklin Delano Roosevelt” at the Los Angeles Jewish Home in Reseda. Nettie Freeman , center, portrays Eleanor Roosevelt and Lino Zambrano, right, is Franklin D. Roosevelt. The cast ranged in age from 85 to 92.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Holocaust survivor Lotte Seeman, 93, center, watches the play that was produced under the auspices of the SS St. Louis Legacy Project with actors from the Reseda home. Seeman recalled how Adolf Hitler had made fun of the predicament of the St. Louis passengers, who were turned away by the U.S. and Canada and returned to Europe. “I remember it. I remember every thing of it” said Seeman, who spent more than two years in an Amsterdam attic, hiding from the Nazis.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Residents, including Ernest Braunstein, applaud their fellow residents who acted in the play. About 60 residents of the home survived the Holocaust.  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Betsey Windmuller Roberts points out her father, John Windmuller, who was a teenager aboard the St. Louis. Roberts’ mother was also on board. They didn’t encounter each other on the ship, but met later at a children’s home in France. They stayed in touch and began a courtship when both came to America.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Residents of Los Angeles Jewish Home discuss the play “The Trial of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” which takes to task the U.S. for not taking in the more than 900 Jewish refugees on the ocean liner St. Louis, which was returned to Europe, where 254 of its passengers died in the Holocaust.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Betsey Windmuller Roberts, who volunteers at the Los Angeles Jewish Home, talks about her parents, who were both on the ocean liner St. Louis.   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)