Event History
The St. Louis was a German luxury liner carrying more than 930 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to Cuba in May 1939. When the ship set sail from Hamburg on May 13, 1939, all of its refugee passengers bore legitimate landing certificates for Cuba. However, during the two-week period that the ship was en route to Havana, the landing certificates granted by the Cuban director general of immigration in lieu of regular visas, were invalidated by the pro-fascist Cuban government. When the St. Louis reached Havana on May 27 all but 28 of the Jewish refugees were denied entry. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) dispatched Lawrence Berenson to Cuba to negotiate with local officials but Cuban president Federico Laredo Bru insisted that the ship leave Havana harbor. The refugees were likewise refused entry into the United States. Thus on June 6 the ship was forced to return to Europe. While en route to Antwerp several European countries were cajoled into taking in the refugees (287 to Great Britain; 214 to Belgium; 224 to France; 181 to the Netherlands). Only those who were accepted by Great Britain found relative safety. The others were soon to be subject once again to Nazi rule with the German invasion of western Europe in the spring of 1940. A fortunate few succeeded in emigrating before this became impossible. In the end, many of the St. Louis passengers who found temporary refuge in Belgium, France and the Netherlands died at the hands of the Nazis, but the majority survived the war.
Biography
Ursula Lowenstein (born Ursula Seligmann) is the daughter of Siegfried and Alma Seligmann. She was born on January 23, 1923 and had one sister Else. the family lived in Ronnenberg, Germany, where Siegfried was a respected cattle dealer. Realizing the danger that the Nazis posed, the Seligmanns applied to emigrate to the United States and were placed on the quota lists at the American consulate in Hamburg. During Kristallnacht, Nazi storm troopers arrested Siegfried and transported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Following his release, Siegfried, Alma, and Ursula purchased tickets for the St. Louis. When the ship returned to Europe in 1939, the Seligmanns were assigned to Belgium and settled in Brussels. Following the German invasion in May 1940, the Belgium police arrested Siegfried as an "enemy alien." He was transported to France and detained in les Milles, a ceramic tile factory converted to an internment camp for German and Austrian nationals. In an effort to find him, Alma and Ursula fled to France, were arrested in Paris, and transported to the Gurs internment camp. During the summer and fall of 1941, the family obtained the necessary visa to leave France. Alma and Ursula went to Marseilles to await Siegfried's release before they fled to Portugal and departed Lisbon for the United States. In November 1941 they sailed to New York aboard the Portuguese liner Colonial. The Seligmanns arrived in the United States on December 3, 1941, just days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Settling in Washington, they rejoined Else, who had succeeded in leaving Germany on her own.
