Refuge Denied

The ordeal of the refugee ship St. Louis has become a symbol of the world s indifference to the plight of European Jewry on the eve of the Holocaust. In the spring of 1939, more than nine hundred Jewish refugees boarded theSt. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, hoping to escape escalating oppression by the Nazi government. The ship was denied entry, and nearly all of its passengers denied asylum, by Cuba and the United States. Returning on an uncertain voyage to Europe, the refugees eventually were accepted by four western European countries, but only the 288 sent to England evaded the Nazi grip that closed upon continental Europe a year later.