ABSTRACT
On Saturday, May 27, 1939, the Hamburg American Line’s luxury cruiser St. Louis arrived in Havana harbor after a two-week voyage from Germany. The arrival in the Caribbean Sea marked far more than just the termination of a pleasant ocean cruise for 930 of the 936 passengers who had a red “J” stamped on their passports which identified them as Jewish refugees. Now they could relax; an asylum from Nazi oppression had been found. None had yet learned that the day before they steamed into port, the President of Cuba, Federico Laredo Brú, had issued orders forbidding the landing of any passengers and permitting no one aboard. What had begun as a sunny day with hope of a new life for these Jewish refugees free from the threat of a concentration camp was turning into a nightmare. No longer was their sanctuary assured, and the possibility of the return trip to Nazi Germany must have flashed through each refugee’s mind. 1
