Survivors of 'Voyage of the Damned' recall tragic trip

[Are_grits_groceries]

Before the six million, there were the 937.

They were German Jews aboard the transatlantic liner MS St. Louis seeking safe haven from the Nazis in Havana and Miami four months before World War II broke out.

Refused entry first by the Cubans then by the United States, the stateless refugees returned to Europe, where 254 died in the Holocaust.
<snip>
``The signal to Hitler was that nobody cares about the Jews,'' said Col. Phil Freund, U.S. Army Reserve, retired. He turned 8 aboard the ship as it languished in Havana Harbor in May 1939.

``There was tremendous anti-Semitism at the time, so the message was: `Let them do to you what they want to do.' ''

The Nazis did, and by war's end in 1945, 6 million European Jews had died of starvation and torture, gas and gunshot, in degradation and despair.
<snip>
``The Coast Guard drove us off,'' said Freund. ``Then we went to Fort Lauderdale, where there was a little Coast Guard station, and they drove us off from there, too.''

The United Kingdom, Belgium, Holland and France accepted most of the passengers, though some died anyway after the Nazis invaded all but the U.K.

History has judged the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt harshly for a failure of political will in the St. Louis affair, a failure finally noted by Congress this year in Senate Resolution 111.
<snip>
The passengers -- with the aid of a sympathetic captain -- ``sent telegrams all over the world'' seeking asylum.

``To Roosevelt -- no answer. To Eleanor Roosevelt asking that the children be allowed in -- no answer. We knew what would happen to us,'' as did the president.
<snip>
Egon Salmon, 85, of Delray Beach and his sister, Edith Salmon Smith, 76, of Boynton Beach, recalled how the passengers' mood changed ``drastically'' in Havana from upbeat and hopeful to frightened and depressed.

They were literally within shouting distance of their father, who had gone ahead to Cuba and had booked passage for the rest of the family, certain they would reunite on the island and then proceed to the United States.

Instead, he could only call to them from the dock, unsure of their fate.
http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1380682.html

One of the most shameful acts ever!

[geckosfeet]

1. The genocide of WWII was a complete collapse of humanity. Far beyond shameful.

[dipsydoodle]

2. As you so rightly stated

One of the most shameful acts ever x(

[varelse]

3. Yes, and it is our nation's shameful act :(

And people who want to judge others as either "good" or "evil" should remember that the United States of America and her founders have done their share of evil as well as good.