8—THE BULLETIN—Friday, September 13, 1974
Proi/vres most rf/onontfs
TEL AVIV — Despite the war, Israel retained its position as the world's principal producer/ exporter of polished gem .diamonds for 1973.
NEW YEAR GREETINGS—
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Significant New Book Reviewed by Dr. Ages, Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, University of Waterloo.
NEW YEAR GREETINGS
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VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED By Gordon Tliomas and Max Morgan Witts.
Stein and Day. 318 pp.
IN AN ANGRY book published by the Jewish Defense League's Meir Kahane called Never Again, the author began his narrative by describing the surrealistic situation in Miami Beach in prewar days when wealthy Jewish tourists were enjoying the tropical sun and other charms of Florida while at. the same time a few short miles away on international waters, doomed European Jewish refugees were sailing on ocean liners desperately looking for a haven.
Thomas and Witts, the non-Jewish authors of Voyage of the Damned, are now offering us a version of what life was like on those ships. Their story is terrifying all the while it is gripping. When we speak of the Holocaust our minds are benumbed by the magnitude of the horror that we try to conceive. But when Jewish suffering is personalized, as it is in this volume, we understand and feel more poignantly the plight of European Jewry.
On May 13, 1939 the German Liner, St. Louis set out for Hamburg with 900 German-Jewish passengers destined for Cuba. Most of the voyagers had made numerous sacrifices in order to get their names on the passenger lists for they realized that escape from Hitler Germany was their only avenue of salvation. The travelers were a composite German -Jewish group, rich and poor, young and old, religious and secularist. What united them was the hope that this ship, the St. Louis would bring them to a new world and a new life.
THE SHIP'S CAPTAIN, Schroe-der, was a seaman of the old school, gallant, courteous and sensitive. He understood the apprehensions that his passengers shared and he made it clear to his crew that they were to be treated with utmost tact and kindness. Unknown to the captain, however, and agent oftheAbwehr, the German intelligence, hadbeen planted on the boat to convey espionage materials and to make life as miserable as possible for the Jewish emigrants.
While the ship was still at sea Cuban officials, led by the then president Bru, affirmed that the Jewish refugees would not be permitted to disembark in Havana, however deplorable might be their plight. The president maintained his position on this question .despite intense pressures brought upon him by Cuban and international Jewish agencies.
The happless passengers were not even aware of the decision of the Cuban government until after they had arrived in Havana. Exultant expectation soon gave way to despair as the nights passed into days and thence to weeks without any sign that the St. Louis' passengers would be permitted to disembark. Suicide attempts became common. Captain Schroe-der, sympathetic to his charges, was so alarmed at the mood of his passengers that he feared a general mutiny.
In Germany, the refusal of the Cuban government was greeted with enthusiasm. Goebbel's pr(^-aganda ministry trumpeted the news that no country wanted to take the German-Jews; therefore, how could Germany be blamed for its posture towards them? On board the ship the Gestapo agent Schiendick did his best to prevent the ship from docking in North America because he had secret intelligence materials that had to be delivered to Germany.
IN THE END Captain Schroeder had to turn his boat back and head for European waters. With his passengers at the point of despair a message was received that the 900 passengers could disembark in England, Belgium Holland and France. Those who ended up on the continent perished in the concentration camps. Only the lucky ones who made it to England survived. Out of the 900 people who left Hamburg in 1939 barely 200 lived.
"Today, scattered throughout the world," write the authors, "mostly uncertain of each other's existence, the survivors tend to have one thing in common: a love of life and an enthusiasm for living it every day to the full. Having been near death, escaping through a miracle of chance, they realize how precious and precarious life is. They also have an uncommon respect and affection for the people and country that gave them the chance to live."
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