"We knew what was waiting for us there": 80 years ago, Jews tried to escape from Nazism, but the US refused to accept them

On May 13, 1939, the ship St. Louis with 937 passengers on board sailed from Hamburg, Germany, to Havana. Most of its passengers were Jews who had fled Germany - pogroms, violence, discrimination and camps. But neither in Cuba, nor in the United States, nor in Canada were refugees allowed to leave the ship. They were sent back to Europe. A third of the St. Louis' passengers did not survive the Holocaust.

Фото: Depositphotos

The story of this tragic voyage told the publication “Currently,".

On the night of November 10, 1938, throughout Germany, in the annexed Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, wave of anti-Jewish riots: About 400 Jews were killed, another 30 thousand were sent to camps. After three months, most of the prisoners were released on the condition that they leave Germany.

That night went down in history as Crystal Night, or the Night of Broken Glass. After it, Jews began to leave Germany en masse. Many people saw a Cuban visa as one of the ways to escape from the Nazis: Cuba remained perhaps the only country that accepted Jews. Refugees paid their last money for entry permits and plane tickets. There, in a calmer environment, they hoped to wait for an American visa: 734 St. Louis passengers had US immigration quota numbers allowing them to enter the country in three years.

Luxury liner after a miserable life in Berlin

Gisela Knepel (married Feldman) was 15 years old when she, her mother and younger sister set sail on the St. Louis. Gisela survived the war and the Holocaust, and later in interviews she repeatedly told her story.

On the eve of the Crystal Night in Berlin, the SS men arrested her father, a native of Poland. He was waiting for the deportation.

Gisela remembered the broken glass on the sidewalks after the pogrom of the night, looted shops and burning synagogues. Their apartment was given to a German family, and she, her sister, and mother had to move in with her aunt, whose husband was also deported.

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Gisela's mother repeatedly tried to get a visa anywhere, just to leave the country. That's how she learned that the Cuban embassy was selling entry visas, and she managed to get them - the day before the St. Louis sailed.

“When we boarded the ship, I felt a mixture of relief and trepidation. The food was wonderful and the waiters served us! We have never lived in such luxury. A festive atmosphere reigned, we enjoyed the fun,” told Gisela Knepel in an interview with The Jewish Chronicle.

Only Gisela's mother was not happy: she left her husband in Germany, despite his pleas not to leave him. In addition, with them for three they had only ten German marks.

“But we were children, and the ship had cinemas, comfortable cabins and a swimming pool. It was such a contrast with our miserable life in Berlin!” recalled Gisela Knepel.

The captain of the ship did his best to make the trip enjoyable. He allowed the portrait of Hitler to be removed from the wall in the room where the passengers held Saturday services, the women brought their candlesticks, and on Friday evening there was a very family atmosphere, Knepel recalled.

Фото: Depositphotos

Captain Gustav Schroeder

The St. Louis liner was commanded by Gustav Schroeder. He remained the last captain in the Hamburg-America shipping company who did not join the Nazi party NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) and did not wear a swastika armband. He was well aware of the kind of passengers on board the ship and insisted that the crew treat them with the utmost respect.

It was thanks to Gustav Schroeder that the passengers of the liner managed to escape the Nazi camps. He became a hero to them.

On May 23, the captain received a telegram stating that the passengers of the St. Louis would not be able to disembark in Havana. Tourist visas, which people worked so hard to obtain, proved to be invalid.

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Even before the ship’s departure, it turned out that the Minister of Internal Affairs of Cuba, Manuel Benitez, had issued visas on his own initiative and had appropriated all the money received for them. The Cuban government, upon learning of fraud, canceled documents. But none of the passengers before the departure of the liner knew that their visas were invalid.

The St. Louis arrived in Havana on May 27. Only 22 passengers with American visas were able to disembark. The rest were denied entry.

Fred Buff, who sailed the liner (in 1939, he was 17 years old), in an interview with Jewish Standard in 2009 I toldthat the mood of passengers changed "dramatically and quickly".

“There was despair. The ship's hospital was full of depressed people. We hoped that we would not return to Germany - that would have been a disaster: we knew what would be waiting for us there,” he said.

One of the passengers tried to commit suicide. It was Max Lev, previously a successful lawyer. At the age of 14 years he managed to participate in the First World War and get a reward for heroism. Having been in the Nazi concentration camp at the end of the 1930-s, Lev always saw the surveillance of the SS and Gestapo agents. In Havana, he lost his nerve: a man cut his veins and rushed into the water. The sailor saved him, from the ship Lev was taken to the hospital. So Max Löw was the first refugee to hit the Cuban land. His wife and children not allowed leave the ship. (Later, having recovered, he was able to return to the family, which at that time lived in France).

"St. Louis" stood in the roadstead off the coast of Havana for four days. On June 1939, XNUMX, Captain Schroeder received orders to leave Cuban territorial waters. For almost five more days, the liner remained near the Cuban coast in the hope that the authorities would reverse the decision.

At this time, a refusal came from the United States: Secretary of State Cordell Hull advised Roosevelt not to accept Jews.

Captain Schröder circled off the coast of Florida: he thought that you could run aground off the coast and allow the refugees to escape. But the US Coast Guard did not allow this to happen: when the ship approached Miami, American boats blocked his way to the port of the city.

Canada could be another rescue option. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, having received an appeal from passengers of the St. Louis for asylum, handed it over to the director of immigration, Frederick Blair, known for his hostility to Jewish immigration. He convinced the prime minister not to interfere.

On June 6, 1939, St. Louis was forced to return to Europe.

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The ship panicked, the passengers almost staged a revolt. However, Captain Schroeder assured everyone that the ship would not return to Germany until all the passengers received asylum. Moreover, he developed a plan for an emergency, according to which the airliner was to crash off the coast of England in order to force the British authorities to take measures to rescue passengers.

Fortunately, as a result of negotiations between the charitable organization "Joint" ("American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee") and the authorities of some European countries, refugees from "St. Louis" agreed to accept Holland - 181 man, France - 224, United Kingdom - 228 and Belgium - 214.

How it all ended

Passengers were able to leave the St. Louis on June 17, 1939. They went ashore at Antwerp and dispersed to countries that agreed to receive them. By 1940, all passengers on the liner, except those who fled to England, were again in the hands of the Nazis. Of the 288 passengers sent to England, all but one survived the war and the Holocaust. 254 people in other European countries were killed in concentration camps.

Gisela Knepel, her mother and sister were in the UK. Her father died during the Holocaust.

Captain Gustav Schröder never went to sea again after 1940. Thanks to the testimony of some of his surviving refugee passengers, he was released from the denazification process. In 1949, he published a memoir about the voyage of the St. Louis.

Gustav Schröder died in 1959 at the age of 73. In Germany, Schröder was awarded the Order of Merit; in Hamburg, one of the streets was named after him. In 1993, the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem posthumously honored Schroeder with the title Righteous Among the Nations.

Apologies later xnumx years

In 2000, the nephew of the Director of the Immigration Service of Canada, Frederick Blair apologized before the Jewish people for the actions of their uncle.

U.S. Department of State apologized to passengers of the St. Louis in 2012. The official ceremony was attended by Deputy Secretary Bill Burns and the ship's 14 surviving passengers.

In May, 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter, that the Canadian government will soon apologize for its role in the fate of the ship’s passengers. Official apology followed in November of the same year.

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