A Jewish couple poses next to a life preserver on the deck of the MS St. Louis one day after it left Hamburg harbor.
Overview
- Caption
- A Jewish couple poses next to a life preserver on the deck of the MS St. Louis one day after it left Hamburg harbor.
Pictured are Richard and Betty Blum. - Date
-
1939 May 14
- Locale
- En Route To Cuba
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Richard Blum
- 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.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Richard Blum
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Richard Blum was born on August 28, 1886 in Srem, Poland near Poznan. His wife Betty neé Simon was born on January 20, 1891 in Zydowskie, Poland. They married in Poland and then immigrated to Berlin, Germany where Richard worked as a tailor. Richard and Betty had one son, Hanan. Hanan belonged to the Zionist group, Blau-Weiss (Blue and White) and immigrated to Palestine in 1936 to help found the kibbutz, Ein Gev. His parents remained in Germany. One month after Kristallnacht, they registered with the American consulate for United States immigration visas. They needed to apply under the more restrictive Polish immigration quota and received the waiting numbers of 9970 and 9971. They therefore decided to sail to Cuba and wait there until they could come to the States where Richard had a brother. They booked passed on the MS St. Louis and set sail from Hamburg on May 13, 1939. After the ship was forced to return to Europe they disembarked in Belgium and lived there for one year. Following the May 10, 1940 German invasion of Western Europe, the Blums fled to France. After a three month internment in the camp Gurs, they proceeded on to Nice on August 15, 1940. They found housing with the Brown family who protected them for the remainder of the war. Richard continued to work from their apartment as a tailor. After the war ended, they decided to join their son in Palestine. They waited two years for certificates and legally immigrated to Palestine in 1947 and settled in Haifa.
- Record last modified:
- 2006-06-26 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1156952
