Cuba’s Forgotten Jewels

Directed by Judy Kreith & Robin Truesdale 
USA | 50 minutes | 2017

Cuba’s Forgotten Jewels explores the little-known story of the Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi-occupied Europe and found a safe haven on the Caribbean island of Cuba. After a wave of Jewish refugees arrived in Cuba in the 1920s and 30s, the island shut its doors to immigrants, most notably to the Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis in 1939. In 1940, Cuba changed course and took in 6,000 Jewish refugees, including hundreds of Jewish diamond cutters and their families who, for a few years, turned the small tropical island into one of the world’s major diamond-polishing centers. In the factories, women worked beside men, Jews beside Cubans. Through rare insightful firsthand interviews, survivors recall their lives in wartime Havana: the attraction to Cuban food, music and dance, its language and people, as well as the challenges they faced in this unfamiliar land. Cuba's Forgotten Jewels received its Florida Premiere at the 2018 Miami Jewish Film Festival.