Plan of the two-propeller passenger liner the "St. Louis," showing cabins and room numbers. In 1939, this German ocean liner carried almost 1,000 Jewish refugees seeking temporary refuge in Cuba. It was forced to return to Europe after Cuba and then the United States refused to allow the refugees entry.
The plight of German-Jewish refugees, persecuted at home and unwanted abroad, is illustrated by the voyage of the SS "St. Louis." On May 13, 1939, the SS "St. Louis," a German ocean liner, left Germany with almost a thousand Jewish refugees on board. The refugees' destination was Cuba, but before their arrival the Cuban government revoked their permission to land. The "St. Louis" was forced to return to Europe in June 1939. However, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands agreed to accept the stranded refugees. After German forces occupied western Europe in 1940, many "St. Louis" passengers and other Jewish refugees who had entered those countries were caught up in the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
Gerda and her parents obtained visas to sail to Cuba on the "St. Louis" in May 1939. When the ship arrived in Havana harbor, most of the refugees were denied entry and the ship had to return to Europe. Gerda and her parents disembarked in Belgium. In May 1940, Germany attacked Belgium. Gerda and her mother escaped to Switzerland. After the war, they were told that Gerda's father had died during deportation.
Gerda was an only child of Jewish parents. They lived in Breslau, a large industrial city on the Oder River. Before World War II, Breslau's Jewish community was the third largest in Germany. Her father worked as a salesman for a large hardware and building materials company. Gerda attended public school until age 9 when she was admitted to a Catholic girls' school.
1933-39: Gerda walked through the city to see the aftermath of a pogrom. The windows of Jewish shops had been shattered. A torched synagogue continued to smolder. She begged her parents to leave Germany. Months later, they decided they should flee. Gerda and her parents got visas to Cuba and left from Hamburg aboard the ship St. Louis on May 13, 1939. Arriving in Cuba on the 27th, they were told their visas were invalid. Denied entry, they had to return to Europe.
1940-44: Disguised as farm women, Gerda and her mother drove a hay wagon past the German border patrol to a farm on the French-Swiss border. They walked down a small ravine, crossed a stream and then slipped under a barbed-wire fence that marked the official border. But they were apprehended by Swiss border guards and held overnight. The next day, they were put on a train with other refugees. No one told them where they were going or what was going to happen to them.
Gerda was interned in a refugee camp in Switzerland for two years, and then worked in Bern in a blouse factory until the end of the war. She immigrated to the United States in 1949.
Liane's Polish-born Jewish parents were married in Vienna, where they lived in a 14-room apartment in a middle-class neighborhood near the Danube River. Liane's father, a dentist, had his office in their home.
1933-39: After Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Liane's father was found dead, a probable suicide. In May 1939, four months before war broke out, her mother booked passage on the St. Louis, a ship bound for Cuba. But Cuban authorities turned the ship back. Along with some other refugees from the ship, Liane, her mother and brother disembarked in the French city of Boulogne, and were then sent south to Loudun.
1940-44: The Germans invaded France. The Reifs soon boarded a train for Limoges, which had not been taken by the Germans. At first they were housed in a stadium used for circus performances, where they slept on the rows of stone bleachers. They had hardly any food; during the course of a day Liane's meals consisted of a little milk, boiled brown lentils, and day-old bread. Occasionally there were potatoes, or an egg. On her sixth birthday Liane's mother brought her the nicest present she'd ever had--a peach and some dried fruit.
In 1941 the Reifs settled in New York, after relatives helped them arrange passage to the United States via Portugal. Liane later earned a doctorate in chemistry.
Belgian officials at the gangplank of the St. Louis after the ship was forced to return to Europe from Cuba. Belgium granted entry to some of the passengers. Antwerp, Belgium, June 1939.
The voyage of the St. Louis, a German ocean liner, dramatically highlights the difficulties faced by many people trying to escape Nazi terror. On May 13, 1939, the St. Louis left Hamburg, Germany, en route to Cuba. 937 passengers, most Jewish refugees, were on the voyage. Most of them planned eventually to immigrate to the United States and were on the waiting list for admission. All passengers held landing certificates permitting them entry to Cuba, but when the St. Louis reached the port of Havana on May 27, the President of Cuba refused to honor the documents.
After the ship left the Havana harbor, it sailed so close to the Florida coast that the passengers could see the lights of Miami. The captain appealed for help, but in vain. US Coast Guard ships patrolled the waters to make sure that no one jumped to freedom and did not allow the ship to dock in the United States. The St. Louis turned back to Europe. Belgium, the Netherlands, England, and France admitted the passengers. But within months, the Germans overran western Europe. Hundreds of passengers who disembarked in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France eventually fell victim to the Nazi "Final Solution."
Last Edited: Sep 23, 2025
Author(s):
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
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