The Voyage of the St. Louis

1. The Voyage of the St. Louis

2. Introduction Students often ask, "Why didn’t Jewish people flee Germany when the Nazis took power?" Framed in the context of several broader issues, the story of the St. Louis offers a historical case study through which to address this question. The broader contextual issues include: German anti-Jewish policy in 1938 and 1939; the international response to the growing refugee crisis; the plight of refugees in German-occupied western Europe; and United States immigration and refugee policy during the 1930s and 1940s.

3. Your Role…. Using documentary evidence, Museum researchers have reconstructed the individual stories of many St. Louis passengers. This information will help students understand the complex issues mentioned above, especially the difficulties that Jewish refugees faced when fleeing Nazi Germany and how United States government policies influenced the fates of refugees

4. Part 1If you would like to work with a partner… Explore "The Voyage," "Return to Europe," and, if time permits, the stories of the five families in The Story section.

5. Part 2 Next each group will be assigned to research one of the four passengers featured in The Search section.

6. Part 3 "The United States and the Refugee Crisis"; "The Holocaust in France"; and "The Holocaust in Belgium“ Students should use these readings to construct a timeline illustrating U.S. and German policies toward refugees in western Europe during the Holocaust.

7. Answer the following questions • How did the United States respond to the refugee crisis and why? (Use information from the supplementary readings to answer this question.) • What was life like for refugees in Vichy France and German-occupied western Europe? (All sections of the website provide useful information for answering this question.) • What made it difficult for refugees to escape from the Nazis in German-occupied or German-allied western Europe? (All sections of the website provide useful information for answering this question.) • What documents did a refugee need in order to enter the United States, and what did he or she need in order to leave countries in Europe? What factors affected the ability of refugees to successfully complete the visa application process? (The story of Moritz Schoenberger in The Search section, and the stories of the Hermanns, Blumenstein, and Seligmann families in The Story section provide useful information for answering these questions.) • What makes it difficult to know exactly what happened to some victims of the Holocaust? What kind of documentation is required to achieve a reasonable degree of certainty about an individual’s fate? (Use information and passenger profiles from The Search section to answer these questions.)