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The ship St. Louis left Nazi Germany on May 13, 1939, with 937 German Jews bound for Cuba. Most had sold all their belongings to book passage, pay off corrupt German officials, and buy visas to Cuba. Hope turned to despair when Havana suddenly barred their entry. For thirty excruciating days, the St. Louis wandered the seas and was refused haven by every country in the Americas. Finally, they returned to Europe, where the refugees were accepted by Holland, France, Belgium, and England. Four months later, World War II began and many of the passengers died in Nazi death camps. Includes archival footage, photographs, interviews with nine survivors, and readings from the diary of the ship's captain.
Transcript
00:09In the 1930s, the publicity films of the Hamburg-America line portrayed a world of European sophistication and civilization.
00:24It therefore came as a great surprise when, in the spring of 1939, the Nazi government of Germany allowed one
00:32such ship, the SS St. Louis, to carry across the Atlantic almost a thousand Jews, fleeing the regime of Adolf
00:40Hitler.
00:45From all over Germany, desperate Jewish families scrambled towards Hamburg to find a place on the departing ship.
00:52One of the hopeful refugees was Herbert Karliner, a 12-year-old boy from the town of Gliwitz, traveling with
00:59his family.
01:08Ten days into the voyage, Captain Schroeder recorded the first turn for the worse.
01:14As we approached our destination, a dark cloud cast a shadow over the ship.
01:19The German liner St. Louis, with Jewish refugees aboard 918.
01:25The refugees sailed to Cuba, but were denied admission.
01:29Suspense, terror and pity.
01:36There was no definite destination.
01:40It was sort of a nebulous thing that, where are we going?
01:43Nobody really had the answer.
02:00The

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