Media Essay
Voyage of the St. Louis - ID Card/Oral History
Gerda Blachmann
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.
Item ViewKlara Gottfried Reif
Klara Gottfried Reif's parents, Herschel and Ethel Gottfried, owned a flour mill and a general store in a small Polish town. Klara could speak five languages. As a young woman, she took an interest in fashion, and enjoyed travelling. On a trip to Vienna, she met Dr. Gerson Reif, a young dentist. After marrying in 1925, the couple settled in Vienna and the first of their two children was born in 1927.
1933-39: After the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, they effectively prevented Jewish dentists from practicing. Forced to abandon his successful practice, Klara's husband grew increasingly depressed. In September 1938, he was found dead, probably a suicide. In May 1939, Klara and her two children sailed for Cuba on the St. Louis. Turned back by Cuba and the Americans, the ship returned to Europe. The Reifs found haven in France.
1940-44: After the Germans invaded France in 1940, Klara and her children fled south to Limoges, which was not occupied by the Germans. She was traumatized by the shock of losing her husband and becoming a refugee. She was in France, but couldn't speak French. She had two children to care for, and food was very scarce. Once Klara heard that eggs might be available on a nearby farm so she set out from Limoges, children in tow. They walked for several hours to get there and back, only to discover when they got home that the eggs were rotten.
In 1941 American relatives, the Klinghoffer family, helped arrange passage for Klara and her children to the United States via Portugal. The Reifs settled in New York.
Item ViewLiane Reif
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.
Item ViewGerda Blachmann Wilchfort describes the mood of passengers on the "St. Louis" after they were denied entry into Cuba
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.
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