# UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

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## Voyage of the "St. Louis"

On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba. On the voyage were 937 passengers. Almost all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich. Most were German citizens, some were from eastern Europe, and a few were officially "stateless."

The majority of the Jewish passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and had planned to stay in Cuba only until they could enter the United States. But by the time the St. Louis sailed, there were signs that political conditions in Cuba might keep the passengers from landing there. The U.S. State Department in Washington, the American consulate in Havana, some Jewish organizations, and refugee agencies were all aware of the situation. Tragically, the passengers themselves were not and most would be sent back to Europe.

Since Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass" pogrom of November 9-10, 1938), the Nazis had been trying to accelerate the pace of forced Jewish emigration. The German Foreign Office and Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry also hoped to use other nations' refusal to admit Jews to further the regime's anti-Jewish goals.

The owners of the St. Louis, the Hamburg-America Line, knew even before the ship sailed that its passengers might have trouble disembarking in Cuba. But the passengers, who held landing certificates issued by the Cuban Director-General of Immigration, did not know that eight days before the ship sailed, Cuban President Federico Laredo Bru had issued a decree invalidating all landing certificates. Entry to Cuba required written authorization from Cuba's Secretaries of State and Labor and the posting of a $500 bond. (The bond was waived for U.S. tourists.)

The voyage of the St. Louis attracted a great deal of media attention. Even before the ship sailed from Hamburg, right-wing Cuban newspapers with pro-fascist sentiments announced its impending arrival and demanded an end to the continued admission of Jewish refugees. When the St. Louis passengers were denied entrance into Cuba, the American and European press brought the story to millions of readers throughout the world. Though U.S. newspapers generally portrayed the plight of the passengers with great sympathy, only a few suggested that the refugees be admitted into America.

Unbeknownst to them, the passengers were to become victims of bitter infighting between members of the Cuban government. The Director-General of the country's immigration office, Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, had come under a great deal of public scrutiny for the sale of landing certificates. He routinely sold such documents for $150 or more and, according to estimates made by American officials, had amassed a personal fortune of 500,000 to 1,000,000 dollars. Though a protege of Cuban army chief of staff (and future president) Fulgencio Batista, Benitez's corruption and the profits that he had accrued had fueled resentment in the Cuban government, which eventually led to his dismissal.

When the St. Louis arrived in Havana harbor on May 27, only 28 passengers were allowed to land. Six of them were not Jewish (4 Spanish and 2 Cuban nationals). The remaining 22 had valid entry documents. An additional passenger ended up in a Havana hospital after a suicide attempt.

More than money, corruption, and internal power plays were at work in Cuba. The country was economically depressed, and many Cubans resented the relatively large number of refugees already in Cuba, including 2,500 Jews, who were perceived as competitors for scarce jobs.

Hostility toward immigrants had two other roots: antisemitism and xenophobia. The growing animosity was being fanned by agents of Germany, as well as by indigenous right-wing movements, such as the Cuban Nazi party. Several newspapers in Havana and the provinces fueled rising emotions by printing allegations that Jews were Communists. Three of the papers--Diario de la Marina, Avance, and Alerta--were owned by the influential Rivero family, which staunchly supported the Spanish fascist leader Francisco Franco.

Reports about the upcoming sailing of the St. Louis fueled a large antisemitic demonstration in Havana on May 8, five days before the ship left Hamburg. The rally, the largest antisemitic demonstration in Cuban history, had been sponsored by Grau San Martin, a former Cuban president. Grau spokesman Primitivo Rodriguez urged Cubans to "fight the Jews until the last one is driven out." The demonstration drew 40,000 spectators. Thousands more listened on the radio.

On May 28, the day after the St. Louis arrived in Havana, Lawrence Berenson, an attorney representing the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), arrived in Cuba to negotiate for the St. Louis passengers. Berenson had been president of the Cuban-American Chamber of Commerce and had extensive business experience in Cuba. He met with President Bru, who refused to allow the passengers into the country. On June 2, Bru ordered the ship out of Cuban waters. But as the St. Louis sailed slowly toward Miami, the negotiations continued. Bru offered to admit the passengers if the JDC posted a $453,500 bond ($500 per passenger). Berenson made a counteroffer, which Bru rejected, then broke off negotiations.

Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, passengers on the St. Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never answered the cable. The State Department and the White House had already decided not to let them enter the United States. A State Department telegram sent to a passenger stated that the passengers must "await their turns on the waiting list and then qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States." American diplomats in Havana asked the Cuban government to admit the passengers on a "humanitarian" basis.

Quotas set out in the 1924 Immigration Act strictly limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted to the United States each year. In 1939, the annual combined German-Austrian immigration quota was 27,370 and was quickly filled. In fact, there was a waiting list of at least several years. Visas could have been granted to the passengers only by denying them to the thousands of German Jews who had already applied for them. President Roosevelt could have issued an executive order to admit additional refugees, but chose not to do so for a variety of political reasons.

Two smaller ships also sailed to Cuba in May 1939 carrying Jewish refugees. The French ship, the Flandre, carried 104 passengers; the Orduņa, a British vessel, held 72 passengers. Like the St. Louis, these ships were not permitted to dock in Cuba. The Flandre turned back to its point of departure in France, while the Orduņa proceeded to a series of Latin American ports. Its passengers eventually disembarked in the American-controlled Panama Canal Zone and most were later admitted to the United States.

American public opinion, although ostensibly sympathetic to the plight of refugees and critical of Hitler's policies, still favored immigration restrictions. The Great Depression had left millions of Americans unemployed and fearful of economic competition for the scarce few jobs available. It also fueled antisemitism, xenophobia, nativism, and isolationism. A Fortune Magazine poll at the time indicated that 83 percent of Americans opposed relaxing restrictions on immigration.

Few politicians were willing to challenge the mood of the nation. At about the same time that the St. Louis passengers were seeking a haven, the Wagner-Rogers bill, which would have permitted the admission of 20,000 Jewish children from Germany outside the existing quota, was allowed to die in committee. On the Wagner-Rogers bill and the admittance of the St. Louis passengers, President Roosevelt remained silent. Following the U.S. government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. Jewish organizations (particularly the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with European governments to allow the passengers to be admitted to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Many of the passengers in continental Europe later found themselves under Nazi rule.

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