starkcontrasts:celestialmayhem:micdotcom:In May 1939, as the Nazis were tightening their chokehold o
starkcontrasts:celestialmayhem:micdotcom:In May 1939, as the Nazis were tightening their chokehold on Europe, the United States government rejected the SS St. Louis, a German passenger vessel carrying 937 refugees who were trying to dock at the Port of Miami.Almost all of those refugees were Jews fleeing violence in Germany and Eastern Europe, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The ship was eventually forced to return to Europe, where 254 of its passengers were killed.On Friday, to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a pair of Jewish scholars — Russel Neiss and Charlie Schwartz — started tweeting the names of the people who were aboard the SS St. Louis, under the handle @Stl_Manifest. Read moreI actually went to seminar of one of the passengers of the S.S, Louis who survived the holocaust a couple of months ago and something I learned from her was that the whole voyage of the S.S. Louie was a planned sabotage meant to act as Nazi propaganda and a fairly successful one. It’s an incredibly important story so I wish to share it with my followers, especially with everything happening nowadays. Basically as best as i can remember it the story of the S.S, Louie goes like this:During 1939 as Nazi’s were rising in power and gaining control over Europe, Many German-Jewish families could see the warning signs and tried to find asylum outside of Europe for many the answer came in the form of the S,S, Louie a cruise ship taking refugees that was bound for Cuba. Most everyone who went on this journey had a legal Visa to enter Cuba, what they didn’t know however was that the Nazi regime had been placing their agents closer and closer to the head of the Cuban government. They knew this ship was coming and wanted to make an example of them. The nazi agents convinced the Cuban government to rescind the visas, so by the time they reached Cuba their Visas were no longer valid and the ship was not allowed to dock on the Cuban shore. The S.S. Louie remained docked for about ten days or so iirc before the captain realized there was no hope and Cuba was not going to take in the refugees as promised. Determined not to return to Germany with the refugees, The captain chose to sail to nearby Florida instead in order to seek asylum in America. However just like with Cuba The United states refused entry into the country, even after a Jewish Association in Paris offered to Pay the united states about $500 per person (again I might be off on the amount but regardless it was a lot of money at the time).Meanwhile back in Germany, Nazi controlled Newspaper carefully documented the travels of the ship. The gist of most of the articles being: “Look, nobody wants these people, not the cubans not the states. We can’t even pay them to take them. We are doing the world a favor by getting rid of these people” The Captain as well as the people in Paris tried desperately to get the US to take the refugees but unfortunately the US firmly denied them access. Realizing they were running out of supplies the captain had no choice but to turn back to Europe. Still the Captain refused to return to Nazi occupied territory and instead sailed to England. Where they were able to convince Holland, Great Britain, Belgium and France to take their passangers. Unfortunately Holland and France would later be taken over by the Nazi’s and thus many of these Refugees were murdered. We as citizens can not allow this to happen again. Between, the Syrians, the lgbt russians and many many others we cannot allow more people to be turned away and sent back to their doom. It is the only way we can honor the memory of those passangers of the S.S. St. Louie.important -- source link