Copyright 2016, Allison Lawlor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.
Nimbus Publishing Limited
3731 Mackintosh St, Halifax, NS, B3K 5A5
(902) 455-4286 nimbus.ca
Printed and bound in Canada
NB1172
Cover and interior design: Jenn Embree
Cover photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (top)
Art Resource New York (bottom)
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Lawlor, Allison, 1971-, author
The saddest ship afloat : the tragedy of the MS St. Louis / Allison Lawlor.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-77108-399-7 (paperback)
1. St. Louis (Ship). 2. Jewish refugeesHistory20th century. 3. JewsGermanyHistory20th century. 4. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945). 5. CanadaEmigration and immigrationGovernment policy. I. Title.
DS134.255.L39 2016 940.5318 C2015-908198-X
Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.
Preface
The MS St. Louis sails out of Hamburg, Germany, in front of cheering crowds of Nazi soldiers.
COURTESY OF ART RESOURCE NEW YORK
Long before the ship made headlines around the world in the spring of 1939, the MS (motor ship) St. Louis was a familiar sight in Halifax. The German transatlantic liner made the city a regular port of call during the 1930s.
Built by the Bremer Vulkan shipyards in Bremen, Germany, for the Hamburg-America Line, the St. Louis was a diesel-powered ship 175 metres longabout the equivalent length of two soccer fields. Named after King Louis IX of France, the ship could carry 973 passengers.
The St. Louis regularly sailed from Hamburg to Halifax and New York, which, in the 1930s, was dubbed Luxury Liner Row. Ten Atlantic liners could be docked in the American port in one day. Built for both transatlantic liner service and for leisure cruises, the St. Louis made cruises all the way to the West Indies.
Considered a medium-sized liner, the St. Louis operated during an age of splendour for cruising. The 1930s was the peak for the transatlantic liners. Considered by many to be a frivolous endeavour, transatlantic cruising consisted of making a series of calls to exotic ports and ended with a return to the port of origin. During the cruise, passengers were entertained onboard with fine food, music, and dancing. The 1930s was the ultimate age for luxury, size, splendour, even fantasy for the great liners, according to William Miller, the author of several books on ocean liners and cruise ships.
A Regular Port of Call
Boarding pass of St. Louis passenger Walter Weissler.
COURTESY OF THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
The St. Louiss maiden voyage to Halifax was in 1929 and came at a critical time in the ports history. Halifax was bustling. In 1928, Halifax Harbour was considered the second-largest natural harbour in the world, surpassed only by Sydney, Australia. It was a port of call for most of the large cabin class passenger vessels enroute from Europe to New York, according to a February 1929 brief from the Halifax Harbour Commission. It was considered the Canadian port for regular cargo and passenger service, as well as coastal services for passenger and freight.
In 1928, the city had completed an ocean terminals project that was critical in attracting ocean liners. The project offered large piers with full railway access, refrigerated storage, grain elevators, and an integrated train station, hotel, and immigration terminal at Pier 21. The additions allowed liners to quickly and easily dock and let passengers off. The long stretch of Piers 20, 21, and 22 could even dock two of the biggest liners in the world at the same time.
German graphic artist Ottomar Anton created promotional posters for many shipping companies, like this one advertising the Hamburg-America Line, c. 1930.
COURTESY OF THE MARITIME MUSEUM OF THE ATLANTIC
Halifax became an attractive port for small and medium-sized liners like the St. Louis, or the Cunard Lines Ascania, which visited the city more than two hundred times. Halifax was often an intermediate port where the liners would stop to let off Canadian passengers and immigrants before continuing on to larger ports like New York.
The St. Louis called on Halifax at least two dozen times. During this period, the Halifax port had forty-eight shipping lines using its facilities, and as many as 1,600 steamers used the port in 1929. There were other ships that regularly called on Halifax including the Kungsholm of the Swedish-American Line and the Minnewaska of American Transport Lines.
The St. Louiss last recorded visit to the Halifax port was in April 1939, just one month before it set off for Havana on its infamous voyage with more than nine hundred Jewish refugees onboard.
Introduction
The MS St. Louis left Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939, destined for Havana, Cuba. On June 6, the ship was forced to turn back to Europe. On June 17, the St. Louis landed in Antwerp, Belgium, after more than a month at sea.
As human beings we should do our best to provide as much sanctuary as we can for those people who can get away. I say we should do that because these people are human and deserve that consideration, and because we are human and ought to act in that way.
MP Stanley Knowles, in the House of Commons on July 9, 1943
In the spring of 1939 Canada had a difficult choice to make. The MS St. Louis, a German luxury ship carrying hundreds of scared and persecuted Jewish refugees, was sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, just two days away from the port of Halifax. It was moving farther out to sea, having just sailed close to the Florida shore hoping to land. Denied a safe haven first by Cuba and then by the United States, Halifax remained one of the last possible ports of asylum in North America for the Jewish passengers, who feared they would be killed if they returned home to Nazi Germany. Potentially so close to safety off the coast of North America, in the end they were tragically far away.
