FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 7, 2001 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 HISTORIAN TO DISCUSS HOLOCAUST REFUGEES IN IOWA Historian and author Michael Luick-Thrams will give a presentation at Drake University Wednesday, Sept. 12, on "Safe Haven in Iowa: The Scattergood Hostel and Refugees from the Holocaust." His presentation, which is free and open to the public, will start at 8 p.m. in Bulldog Theater in Olmsted Center, 29th Street and University Avenue. Luick-Thrams holds a Ph.D. in modern European history from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He is the author of "Out of Hitler's Reach: the Scattergood Hostel for European Refugees 1939-1943." His book tells about 185 refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe who found a safe haven at Scattergood, a temporary hostel in what had been an abandoned Quaker boarding school near West Branch, Iowa. Among them were not only Jews but also political opponents of Hitler's regime, religious figures, professionals, merchants, journalists, artists, elderly ladies and single young men, students and children. Luick-Thrams explores the refugees' backgrounds, their flight from Europe, their arrival in the United States and the process through which they formed new identities in America. He describes the Scattergood Hostel as "Schindler's List on the Prairie." For more information, contact Debra De Laet, assistant professor of politics and international relations, at 271-1844.