# UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

All Articles

## The Voyage of the St. Louis

Permanent Exhibition: Fourth Floor

On May 13, 1939, the German passenger liner St. Louis set sail from Hamburg for Cuba with 937 passengers aboard. Almost all were Jews, a small portion of the tens of thousands seeking to leave Germany. The vast majority had purchased Cuban landing certificates in the hope of entering the United States when their immigration waiting numbers were called.

Yet when the ship reached Havana harbor, Cuban authorities only permitted 28 passengers bearing visas to disembark. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the Cuban president, angered by corruption in the immigration department and faced with rising anti-refugee and anti-Jewish sentiment, had invalidated their landing certificates eight days before the ship left Germany.

As the St. Louis waited in the harbor, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a relief organization, negotiated with Cuban officials, who demanded a $500 bond per passenger. The ship was forced to leave Cuban waters and the government eventually broke off negotiations.

Without assurances of a haven, the St. Louis sailed close to the Florida shore, where those aboard could see the lights of Miami. The German captain, Gustav Schröder, hoped to land the passengers on American soil, but U.S. Coast Guard boats ordered the ship to leave the country's territorial waters. Fearing a return to Nazi Germany, the passengers desperately cabled American, Cuban, and world officials for refuge.

As the St. Louis headed back to Europe, the JDC successfully negotiated with officials from Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain, and France to accept the refugees. After more than a month at sea, the passengers arrived in Antwerp, where they were taken to their temporary havens. With the German invasion of western Europe in May 1940, some 619 former passengers once again fell under Nazi rule. Of these, more than 250 died during the Holocaust.

Unwanted Everywhere

Newspapers and radio covered the plight of the passengers aboard the St. Louis. A New York Times editorial expressed hope that “hearts will soften and some refuge will be found. The cruise of the St. Louis cries to high heaven of man's inhumanity to man.”

Urgent appeals from the passengers and concerned Americans to the U.S. State Department and to President Roosevelt to intervene in Cuba or allow the refugees into the United States were rejected.

No photos are available
No testimonies are available
No films are available
No songs are available