St. Louis incident
The St. Louis incident refers to the voyage of the ocean liner MS St. Louis, which departed Germany on May 13, 1939, carrying Jewish refugees seeking asylum from the rising threat of Nazism. Under the command of Captain Gustav Schröder, the passengers primarily hoped to reach the United States. However, upon reaching Cuba, the ship was denied entry due to anti-Semitic sentiments stirred by the Nazis, which had influenced both public opinion and government policy.
Despite the captain's efforts to find refuge for his passengers, including a consideration of beaching the ship to force an acceptance of the refugees, U.S. authorities, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ultimately refused to allow them to disembark. As a result, some passengers were able to disembark in other countries, such as England and Belgium. Tragically, many of those who returned to Europe fell victim to the Holocaust. The incident served as a significant moment of propaganda for the Nazis, showcasing the lack of sympathy shown by other nations towards Jewish refugees, and underscored the challenges faced by those fleeing persecution during this critical period in history.
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St. Louis incident
The Event Refusal by Cuba and the United States to allow a German ship carrying mostly Jewish refugees to come ashore
Date 1939
The U.S. Coast Guard kept the St. Louis, previously unable to offload its passengers in Cuba, from landing in Florida so that it had to return to Europe. The Nazi propaganda machine used the incident to show the world that other countries, including the United States, considered Jews undesirable.
The St. Louis left Germany on May 13, 1939, under the command of Captain Gustav Schröder. Most of its passengers hoped eventually to get to the United States. Before the trip, Schröder ordered the crew to treat these passengers like any other passengers. All the crew on board did so except for a group of Gestapo “firemen” and their leader, Otto Schiendick, who, unknown to Schröder, was an agent of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization and was carrying clandestine messages to and from Cuba. Before the ship sailed, the Nazis stirred up anti-Semitic sentiment in Cuba to help keep the refugees from landing.
After leaving Cuba, Captain Schröder sailed toward Florida, hoping to land there. However, in spite of uproar in newspapers and among Jewish organizations, authorities refused to let the ship land, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to order that the refugees be accepted. The captain considered trying to beach the ship, thinking that then the Americans would have to accept the refugees, but the Coast Guard watched the St. Louis so closely that Schröder had no chance to implement his plan.
Several countries eventually accepted the refugees. Twenty-eight got off in Cuba, 288 went to England, and 620 to Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Of those, 254 died during the Holocaust, most murdered by the Nazis. Eventually, one-half of the original passengers came to the United States.
Impact
The Nazis got great propaganda value out of the St. Louis incident, claiming that other nations had no more sympathy for the Jews than they did. Many of the passengers who went to the European continent died in the Holocaust. Many of the refugees eventually came to the United States, which, ironically, was their original intended destination.
Bibliography
Ogilvie, Sarah A., and Scott Miller. Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
Thomas, Gordon, and Max Morgan Witts. Voyage of the Damned. New York: Stein and Day, 1974.