THE SHIP NOBODY WANTED

Darkness overtook the SS St. Louis as it approached the Florida coastline on June 3, 1939. The lights of Miami winked in the distance a beacon of hope to more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard the German luxury liner.

The Jews, who had sailed across the Atlantic to escape growing persecution in Nazi Germany, were close enough to see hotels and automobiles along the beach. Peering through binoculars, 12-year-old Herbert Karliner could not take his eyes off the shoreline. `I`d never seen coconut trees in my life. I was very impressed,` Karliner says.

But the attraction was not mutual. A Coast Guard cutter and military plane were dispatched to prevent the ship from entering American waters. Telegrams sent by the passenger committee to President Franklin D. Roosevelt weren`t answered and the State Department DENIED THE JEWS` REQUEST FOR ASYLUM. `The mood on board was grim,` says Liesl Loeb of Elkins Park, Pa., who was 10 and traveling with her parents. `The captain thought he could land the ship illegally at night, but the shore patrol made sure we kept moving.`

Seeking refuge in America was a desperate move by the St. Louis. Days earlier the ship had been denied entry into Cuba her original destination after the government refused to honor the passengers` landing permits. Most of THE JEWS HAD SOLD POSSESSIONS TO BOOK PASSAGE, PAY OFF CORRUPT GERMAN officials and purchase visas. For five days the St. Louis sailed in circles between Cuba and Florida as refuge was sought for the Jews in North, Central and South America.

But the JEWS COULD NOT FIND A FRIEND ANYWHERE. A New York Times editorial lamented, `We can only hope that some hearts will soften somewhere and some refuge be found. The cruise of the St. Louis cries to heaven of man`s inhumanity to men.` The crisis failed to rally support among Americans, including Christians. The final rejection came from Canada and its anti-Semitic immigration director Frederick Blair, who bragged about his success in denying European Jews entry into Canada. Karliner remembers the sting of rejection: `NOBODY IN THE WORLD WANTED US.`

Running low on fuel and supplies, the St. Louis was ordered to return to its homeport in Hamburg, Germany. The passenger committee tried to maintain calm, but behind closed doors JEWISH FAMILIES MADE PLANS TO COMMIT SUICIDE. `That to me was a shocker,` says Jules Wallerstein of Norwalk, Conn. `I was 12 years old and realized it was the end of my life. My parents knew if we went back the TRAINS WOULD BE WAITING FOR US.`

Aaron Pozner, a Hebrew teacher, wanted to live. He and several Jewish young men stormed the bridge and overpowered the watch in a mutiny attempt. When German captain Gustav Schroeder arrived Pozner and two men surrounded him and demanded he sail to any country other than Germany. According to the book VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, Schroeder answered firmly, `The other passengers will not support you. You have not seized the engine room. My crew will overpower you. All you are doing is laying yourself open to a charge of piracy.` The captain, who felt compassion for the refugees, said he would overlook their criminal actions if they left the bridge, which they did. He promised the men he would do everything possible to land the Jews in England.

Pozner already had been a target of Nazi brutality in Germany. During Kristallnacht, the `Night of Broken Glass,` he was dragged from his home and imprisoned briefly at Dachu, where he witnessed the murder of Jews by hanging, drowning and crucifixion. Pozner was released from camp on the condition he leave Germany within 14 days. As he traveled on foot to reach the St. Louis he was beaten and forced to sleep among bloody animal hides.


Schroeder kept his word by planning a daring rescue off the coast of England: he would run the ship aground, set it on fire and evacuate passengers ashore. But a breakthrough in negotiations saved the captain from having to destroy his ship. Four European nations Great Britain, France, Belgium and Holland granted temporary asylum to the Jews. The swing of emotions aboard the ship is captured in this telegram sent by passengers to Morris Troper, an American Jewish lawyer and one of the chief negotiators: `907 St. Louis passengers who have been hanging between hope and despair for the past 13 days, today received your news, delivered on 6/13 that definitive arrangements have been made for all the passengers. Our gratitude is as immense as the sea that we have been sailing on since May 13.`

The Jews, who had languished at sea for 40 days and 40 nights, disembarked in Antwerp, Belgium, and were moved to various locations. Relief for many of the Jews, however, was temporary as World War II erupted months later and trapped them in Nazi-occupied Europe. About a third of the St. Louis Jews, including Pozner, perished in concentration camps. Although many Jewish refugee ships were denied entry by western nations and forgotten, the St. Louis SAGA WAS WELL PUBLICIZED AND EXPLOITED BY THE NAZIS FOR PROPAGANDA. The St. Louis snub helped convince Hitler he could launch his Final Solution without opposition from the West.

Karliner and a brother avoided capture by hiding in an unoccupied zone in France during the war. Karliner immigrated to America in 1947 and three years later was drafted into the Army, where he served as a translator in the Pacific. Today he lives in Miami. His parents and two sisters died at Auschwitz. On Kristallnacht, Herbert and his father watched helplessly as Nazis burned their prayer books and Torah scroll in the synagogue. Joseph tried to rescue the scroll but was shoved back. The Karliner general store was vandalized and its windows shattered. Later, the gestapo rounded up Jewish men in town, including Joseph, and sent them to Buchenwald. Herbert says his father was unrecognizable when he returned from the prisoner camp three weeks later. The Karliners sold their business and home, purchased landing certificates for Cuba at an inflated price, and said goodbye to their homeland forever.

After landing in Britain, Liesl Loeb and her mother Lilli were allowed to book passage for New York. They left London during an air raid and sailed to America on a ship that was stalked by a German submarine. Jules Wallerstein and his family were living in a Brussels apartment when the Nazis invaded Belgium. They fled the country receiving kind treatment from German soldiers along the way and boarded a ship in Casablanca, Morocco, bound for America in 1941.

The St. Louis saga, one of the most shameful chapters in U.S. history, was immortalized in the 1976 movie Voyage of the Damned. It received three Academy Award nominations although Loeb calls it a `bad movie, very Hollywood.` Many St. Louis survivors harbored bitterness and anger toward the American and Canadian governments for denying them asylum. The Jews also were skeptical when Canadian Christians in 2000 invited them to a formal dinner in Ottawa. Church leaders wanted to honor the Jews and express remorse publicly for CANADA`S SNUB of the St. Louis.

Jews accepted the invitation cautiously. During the banquet at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, Baptist pastor Doug Blair great nephew of the immigration director who rejected the St. Louis addressed the 25 survivors in attendance with tenderness: `I have come to beg your forgiveness for the deep, deep wrong that was done to you. I understand very well that my name is not one dear to your heart . . . will you forgive me and let me call you my friends?`

The Jews rose spontaneously to embrace him. Karliner was especially moved by a letter written by a Canadian child: `Dear Jew, I`m sorry we didn`t let you in because you are the apple of God`s eye.`

Weeks before the banquet, Karliner was invited by David Demian, director of Watchmen for the Nations ministry in Vancouver, B.C., to speak at church gatherings across Canada. In Vancouver, 400 Christians moved by Karliner`s testimony rushed the platform, knelt at his feet and asked for forgiveness. `I didn`t know what to do,` Karliner says in his thick German accent. `I tried to lift them up but I couldn`t lift 400 people. When I think about it I still get goose pimples. I knew Jews who were coming to the Ottawa banquet. I couldn`t tell them what I saw and felt. Nobody would believe me.` Karliner also spoke at a church in Ottawa, where hundreds of Christians formed a protective circle around Karliner and several Jewish friends. The Gentiles repeated the Old Testament vow that Ruth spoke to Naomi: `YOUR PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE AND YOUR GOD, MY GOD (see Ruth 1:16).`

Survivors also received a formal apology from American Christians and government officials at an international prayer gathering in June 2001 at Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sixty-two years earlier a Coast Guard gunboat left its base here to intercept the St. Louis. During the three-day All Americas Convocation, Christians and Jews laid a wreath off Florida`s eastern coast. Many survivors threw roses into the water in memory of lost loved ones.

The outreaches have softened relations between Jews and Christians. `Never in my wildest expectations could I imagine the church of Canada as a whole repenting and apologizing to the Jews,` Karliner says. `But in my heart I wanted to give it a try.`

As Jews entered the grand hall for the banquet in Ottawa, Christians broke into thunderous applause. The blast of a ram`s horn filled the room as tears streamed down the faces of Jews and Gentiles. One survivor remarked, `I never had much of a wedding. I felt like a bride walking up the aisle on her wedding day.`