Verix
4th June 2009, 06:59
todays the 70th anniversy of the MS St. Louis full of jewish refugges being turned away from the US heres the wikipedia article on it
Hitler's propaganda ministry and the Nazi Party conceived a propaganda exercise which would demonstrate that Germany was not alone in its territorial exclusionary hostility towards Jews as a permanent minority within the political economy of their nation. The Nazis wanted to prove the “civilized world” agreed with their assertion that Jews constituted a “hidden hand” of influence on national and economic affairs. They meant to show that no other Western country would receive Jews as refugees.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/StLouisHamburg.jpg/180px-StLouisHamburg.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StLouisHamburg.jpg)
Boarding at Hamburg Harbor
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/StLouisPorthole.jpg/180px-StLouisPorthole.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg)
Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis while the ship was docked in the port of Havana.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/GSchroederAntwerp.jpg/180px-GSchroederAntwerp.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GSchroederAntwerp.jpg)
St. Louis Captain Gustav Schroeder negotiates landing permits for the passengers with Belgian officials in the Port of Antwerp
On the surface, it would appear that the Nazis were allowing the Jewish refugees a new life in Havana. However, the Nazis were aware of rising Western anti-Semitism, and correctly surmised that Jews traveling on tourist visas (not immigrant visas, which none of the potential host countries would likely have issued them) would not be able to enter Cuba, since they were clearly political and social refugees. Furthermore, once they had been refused entry by Cuba and other Atlantic nations, the world would be forced to admit that there was, as the Nazis claimed, a “Jewish problem,” which Germany was trying to resolve “humanely.”
St. Louis sailed from Hamburg in May 1939, carrying one non-Jewish and 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution.
As expected, on the ship’s arrival in Cuba, the Cuban government under Federico Laredo Brú refused the passengers both entry as tourists or political asylum. This prompted a near mutiny. Two passengers attempted suicide and dozens more threatened to do the same. However, 29 of the refugees did manage to disembark at Havana.
On June 4, 1939, the St. Louis was also refused permission to land her passengers under orders from President Roosevelt as the ship waited between Florida and Cuba.
The St. Louis then tried to enter Canada but was denied permission as well.
Captain Gustav Schroeder,the commander of the ship, was a non-Jewish German and an anti-Nazi who went to great lengths to assure dignified treatment for his passengers, arranging for Jewish religious services and commanding his crew to treat his refugee passengers as they would any other customers of the cruise line. As the situation of the vessel deteriorated, he personally negotiated and even schemed to find them a safe haven (for instance, at one point he formulated plans to intentionally wreck the ship on the British coast to force the passengers to be taken as refugees). He refused to return the ship to Germany until all of the passengers had been given entry to some other country.
The ship returned to Europe, first stopping in the United Kingdom, where 288 of the passengers disembarked. After much negotiation and pressure from Schroeder, the remaining 619 passengers disembarked at Antwerp; 224 were accepted by France, 214 by Belgium, and 181 into the Netherlands. They were thus safe from Hitler’s persecution until the German invasions of these countries. The ship without any passengers returned to Hamburg and amazingly survived the war.
By using the survival rates for Jews in the various countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated that about 180 of the St. Louis refugees in France, plus 152 of those in Belgium and 60 of those in Holland survived the Holocaust, giving a total of roughly 709 survivors and 227 slain of the original 936 Jewish refugees.
Later, more detailed research by Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has given a slightly higher total of deaths:
"Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that eighty-seven were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. Two hundred and fifty-four passengers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sóbibor; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. Three hundred sixty-five of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war".
Captain Schroeder himself was later awarded the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany and was named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel in recognition of his heroism in attempting to rescue his passengers.
Hitler's propaganda ministry and the Nazi Party conceived a propaganda exercise which would demonstrate that Germany was not alone in its territorial exclusionary hostility towards Jews as a permanent minority within the political economy of their nation. The Nazis wanted to prove the “civilized world” agreed with their assertion that Jews constituted a “hidden hand” of influence on national and economic affairs. They meant to show that no other Western country would receive Jews as refugees.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/StLouisHamburg.jpg/180px-StLouisHamburg.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StLouisHamburg.jpg)
Boarding at Hamburg Harbor
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/StLouisPorthole.jpg/180px-StLouisPorthole.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StLouisPorthole.jpg)
Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis while the ship was docked in the port of Havana.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/GSchroederAntwerp.jpg/180px-GSchroederAntwerp.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GSchroederAntwerp.jpg)
St. Louis Captain Gustav Schroeder negotiates landing permits for the passengers with Belgian officials in the Port of Antwerp
On the surface, it would appear that the Nazis were allowing the Jewish refugees a new life in Havana. However, the Nazis were aware of rising Western anti-Semitism, and correctly surmised that Jews traveling on tourist visas (not immigrant visas, which none of the potential host countries would likely have issued them) would not be able to enter Cuba, since they were clearly political and social refugees. Furthermore, once they had been refused entry by Cuba and other Atlantic nations, the world would be forced to admit that there was, as the Nazis claimed, a “Jewish problem,” which Germany was trying to resolve “humanely.”
St. Louis sailed from Hamburg in May 1939, carrying one non-Jewish and 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution.
As expected, on the ship’s arrival in Cuba, the Cuban government under Federico Laredo Brú refused the passengers both entry as tourists or political asylum. This prompted a near mutiny. Two passengers attempted suicide and dozens more threatened to do the same. However, 29 of the refugees did manage to disembark at Havana.
On June 4, 1939, the St. Louis was also refused permission to land her passengers under orders from President Roosevelt as the ship waited between Florida and Cuba.
The St. Louis then tried to enter Canada but was denied permission as well.
Captain Gustav Schroeder,the commander of the ship, was a non-Jewish German and an anti-Nazi who went to great lengths to assure dignified treatment for his passengers, arranging for Jewish religious services and commanding his crew to treat his refugee passengers as they would any other customers of the cruise line. As the situation of the vessel deteriorated, he personally negotiated and even schemed to find them a safe haven (for instance, at one point he formulated plans to intentionally wreck the ship on the British coast to force the passengers to be taken as refugees). He refused to return the ship to Germany until all of the passengers had been given entry to some other country.
The ship returned to Europe, first stopping in the United Kingdom, where 288 of the passengers disembarked. After much negotiation and pressure from Schroeder, the remaining 619 passengers disembarked at Antwerp; 224 were accepted by France, 214 by Belgium, and 181 into the Netherlands. They were thus safe from Hitler’s persecution until the German invasions of these countries. The ship without any passengers returned to Hamburg and amazingly survived the war.
By using the survival rates for Jews in the various countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated that about 180 of the St. Louis refugees in France, plus 152 of those in Belgium and 60 of those in Holland survived the Holocaust, giving a total of roughly 709 survivors and 227 slain of the original 936 Jewish refugees.
Later, more detailed research by Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has given a slightly higher total of deaths:
"Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that eighty-seven were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. Two hundred and fifty-four passengers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sóbibor; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. Three hundred sixty-five of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war".
Captain Schroeder himself was later awarded the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany and was named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel in recognition of his heroism in attempting to rescue his passengers.