Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Notice to MS St. Louis passengers from the passenger committee and the ship's crew, typewritten on Hamburg-Amerika Line letterhead, informing passengers that landing in Havana remains a possibility, and asking them to be hopeful and ready to respond to an official confirmation of permission to land.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 31736
Notice to MS St. Louis passengers from the passenger committee and the ship's crew, typewritten on Hamburg-Amerika Line letterhead, informing passengers that landing in Havana remains a possibility, and asking them to be hopeful and ready to respond to an official confirmation of permission to land.

Notice to MS St. Louis passengers from the passenger committee and the ship's crew, typewritten on Hamburg-Amerika Line letterhead, informing passengers that landing in Havana remains a possibility, and asking them to be hopeful and ready to respond to an official confirmation of permission to land.

Date
1939 June 03
Locale
[Atlantic Ocean]
Photo Designation
JEWISH REFUGEES: SEARCH FOR SAFE HAVENS (1933-1945) -- Refugee Ships -- St. Louis -- Documents/Press/Artifacts
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hella Loevinsohn Roubicek

About This Photograph

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
Hella Roubicek (born Hella Loevinsohn) was born in 1926 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her father was arrested on Kristallnacht. Her sister, who was living in the United States, managed to assist him in emigrating from Germany to Cuba. He then secured permits for Hella and her mother, Edith (b.1892) on board the St. Louis. They disembarked in Belgium and arrived in the United States in February 1940.

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Artifact Photographer
Max Reid

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Hella Loevinsohn Roubicek
Source Record ID: Collections: 1997.120.7
 
Record last modified: 2013-05-17 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1110816