SS St. Louis
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</td></tr> <tr><td>Owners:</td><td>Hamburg-America Line</td></tr> <tr><td>Builders:</td><td>Bremer-Vulkan Shipyards, yards in Bremen, Germany </td></tr> <tr><td>Port of registry:</td><td>Hamburg, Germany</td></tr> <tr><td>Laid down:</td><td>June 16, 1925</td></tr> <tr><td>Launched:</td><td>May 6, 1928 </td></tr> <tr><td>Maiden voyage:</td><td>June 15, 1929</td></tr> <tr><td>Fate:</td><td>Scrapped in Hamburg, Germany, 1952 <td></tr> <tr><th colspan=2 style="color: white; background: gray;">Specifications</th></tr> <tr><td>Gross Tonnage:</td><td>16,732 GRT</td></tr> <tr><td>Displacement:</td><td>22,060 Long Tons</td></tr> <tr><td>Length:</td><td>574 ft</td></tr> <tr><td>Beam:</td><td>72 ft</td></tr> <tr><td>Number of funnels:</td><td>2</td></tr> <tr><td>Number of masts:</td><td>2</td></tr> <tr><td>Construction:</td><td>Steel</td></tr> <tr><td>Power:</td><td>M.A.N. diesels, meaning that the ship is officially a motor ship, thereby, the MS St. Louis and not the SS St. Louis because it was not powered by steam</td></tr> <tr><td>Propulsion:</td><td>Two triple blade propellers</td></tr> <tr><td>Service Speed:</td><td>16 knots</td></tr> <tr><td>Passenger Accommodation (Upon completion):</td><td> 973 passengers: 270 cabin class, 287 tourist class, 416 third class</td></tr> </table>
MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner built by the Bremer-Vulkan Shipyards in Bremen, Germany, being completed in 1929 for the Hamburg-America Line.
The ship sailed transatlantic routes, from Hamburg to New York, but during the Great Depression turned to cruising to make revenue. The ship is most famous for a single voyage in 1939 immortalized by the motion picture Voyage of the Damned.
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[edit] The Voyage of the Damned
The St. Louis sailed out of Hamburg into the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1939 carrying over 950 Jewish refugees, mostly wealthy, seeking asylum from Nazi persecution just before World War II.
After seeking asylum in Cuba and being refused, the ship headed to Florida, where, on 4 June 1939, it was also refused permission to unload on orders of President Roosevelt. It then tried to enter Canada but was refused once more. The ship sailed back to Germany, whereupon various European nations each agreed to admit a small number of its passengers, the vast majority of whom ended up perishing in the Holocaust as most of the host countries came under Nazi occupation at some point during World War II, which started only a few weeks after the ship's return to Hamburg.
The ship's voyage caused great controversy in the United States: Initially President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed modest willingness to take in some of those on board, but vehement opposition by FDR's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull and from Southern Democrats — some of whom went so far as to threaten to withhold their support of Roosevelt in the 1940 Presidential election if this occurred. On 4 June 1939 Roosevelt issued an order to deny entry to the ship, which was waiting in the Caribbean Sea between Florida and Cuba. The passengers began negotiations with the Cuban government, but those broke down at the last minute. Forced to return to Europe, many of its passengers died in Nazi concentration camps.
Julian Barnes's novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters recounts the trial of the St. Louis Jews in the chapter entitled Three Simple Stories.
[edit] Later Life
The ship became a German naval accommodation ship from 1940 to 1944. It was heavily damaged by the Allied bombings at Kiel on August 30, 1944, but was repaired and used as a hotel ship in Hamburg by 1946. The ship was eventually scrapped in 1952.
[edit] See also
- Evian Conference
- Struma
- Voyage of the Damned, the 1976 movie about this event
- A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, the novel by Julian Barnes.
[edit] External links
- The Tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis - Jennifer Rosenberg, Jewish Virtual Library, The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
- The S.S. St. Louis - Robert Rosende:SS St. Louis
