The Voyage of the St. Louis
On May 13, 1939, the St. Louis, a German transatlantic liner, sailed from Hamburg, Germany with 938 passengers to Havana, Cuba. All but one of the passengers were refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. The majority of the refugees were German Jews.
The voyage of the St. Louis encountered problems before it began. Its passengers did not know that their Cuban landing certificates were invalidated by Cuban President Bru a week before the St. Louis set sail. Because of the corruption of the Cuban Director-General of Immigration, President Bru required émigrés to receive authorization from another government department and to pay a $500 bond. The impoverished refugees did not have the money or connections to post bond to enter Cuba.
People within Cuba protested against accepting more Jewish refugees. As a result of the recent worldwide depression, Cuban nationals did not want to compete with refugees for scarce jobs. Also, right-wing Cubans supported the new Fascist government in Spain and believed that the Jewish refugees were Communists.
On May 27, 1939, the Cuban government admitted 28 of the 937 (one died en route) passengers at the Havana port. Of the 28, 22 had valid U.S. entry visas and 6 were either Spanish or Cuban citizens. The remaining 908 passengers had hoped to remain in Cuba while waiting for their U.S. visas. Cuba refused them entry, as did the United States.
As the St. Louis headed back towards Europe with 908 passengers, it sailed along the Florida coast. Even with mass media coverage, President Roosevelt ignored pleas to help the passengers due to mounting pressure within the U.S. to not raise immigration quotas or accept the St. Louis passengers as a special immigration case.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee along with other Jewish organizations negotiated for Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to give temporary asylum to the 908 passengers. Upon the St. Louis’ return to Europe in June 1939, the refugees were divided among the countries as follows: 288 to Great Britain, 224 to France, 214 to Belgium, and 181 to the Netherlands. Within a year, most of the refugees would be under Nazi control again.
Over twenty-five percent of the passengers on the St. Louis perished in the Holocaust. The passengers who returned to Europe after the failed attempt to reach Cuba had mixed fates. Some were eventually able to emigrate to the U.S. All but one of the passengers who went to Great Britain survived. Of those who remained in continental Europe, half survived in labor or concentration camps or in hiding, the other half were murdered.
Have students explore immigration/emigration and refugee policies during the 1930s and 1940s. Look at how these policies affected Jews trying to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Explain how the following terms influenced a country’s immigration policy towards Jewish refugees: antisemitism, isolationism, nativism, and xenophobia. Look at the current immigration policies of the U.S. Examine how these contemporary policies may relate to the aforementioned terms.
