holocaust victims US rejected as refugees
holocaust victims US rejected as refugees
Culture, History

This Twitter Account Lists Holocaust Victims the U.S. Rejected as Refugees

Written by R. S. Benedict on

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In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a Twitter account is listing the names of the passengers of the St. Louis, a boat of 937 refugees fleeing Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. When the St. Louis landed in Havana in 1939, the Cuban government turned nearly all of them away.

The refugees, most of them Jewish, asked the United States for help. Their pleas went unheard.

The St. Louis was forced to return to Europe, condemning its passengers to a grim fate. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum writes:

The passengers did not return to Germany, however. Jewish organizations (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers: Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died.

These were some of the passengers of the St. Louis:

It seems monstrous now that the United States would turn genocide victims away, but we’re currently gearing up to do it again.