Alex's Wake

by Martin Goldsmith

  During that weekend, as the ship that was to have ushered them to freedom in the New World lay at anchor and in limbo in Havana Harbor, the 908 refugees passed the time as best they could in the hundred-degree heat and heavy humidity. They took snapshots of the city skyline and purchased bananas, coconuts, pineapples, and other tropical fruits from the enterprising vendors who drew up their little boats alongside the luxury liner. Some relatives of the refugees, who had come to the dock to welcome their families ashore, circled the St. Louis in private craft, shouting messages of patience and encouragement. A man paddled his canoe close enough to a second-class porthole to wave to his child, who was being held aloft by his wife. During the long hot nights, the crew of the St. Louis trained her searchlights onto the dark oily waters of the harbor to make sure that no one would take matters into his or her own hands and attempt to swim to shore.

  On Monday, May 29, Robert Hoffman, the HAPAG assistant manager and Abwehr spy, was becoming increasingly nervous that his mission might be compromised by the inability of his courier to reach dry land. He arranged for a few hours’ shore leave for several St. Louis crew members, including Otto Schiendick. Shortly after 6 p.m., a launch containing the crewmen made its way from ship to shore, where Schiendick separated himself from the others and walked rapidly to the HAPAG office. There Hoffman handed him a carved walking stick that had been hollowed out and now contained the information eagerly awaited by the military intelligence forces back in Germany. Schiendick then strolled along the Malecón, the grand esplanade that borders the harbor, making full use of his new stick, until his shore leave was over. As the launch brought him and his fellows back to the safety of the St. Louis, Hoffman observed him through binoculars. Once Schiendick and his walking stick were back on board, Hoffman cabled his superiors in Berlin that the operation had gone smoothly. From his point of view, what happened to the refugees was now irrelevant; so long as the St. Louis returned to Hamburg, as it surely would, his mission would be a complete success.

  The St. Louis at anchor in Havana harbor, as small boats containing relatives of the ship’s passengers draw up alongside.

  (Courtesy of the Associated Press)

  For the refugees, however, the waiting and particularly the uncertainty were slowly becoming unbearable. By Tuesday morning, May 30, they were beginning their fourth day of not knowing when, or if, they would be allowed to disembark, of seeing increasing numbers of police boats cruising around their floating prison, of being counseled to remain patient. “The first Spanish word I learned was mañana,” says Herbert Karliner today. “The Cubans kept saying, ‘maybe tomorrow,’ but tomorrow never came.” Tension, exacerbated by the tropical heat and humidity, slowly became fear, and fear evolved steadily into panic, as increasing numbers of passengers began to contemplate the worst-case scenario: the St. Louis returning them to Hamburg and the terrors they thought they had escaped.

  Dr. Max Loewe, a lawyer from Breslau who had fought for the Kaiser in the Great War and, like Alex Goldschmidt, had been awarded the Iron Cross for his efforts, was one of the passengers who most greatly feared being sent back to Germany. Loewe walked with a limp because the soles of his feet had been beaten by sadistic guards at the Buchenwald concentration camp. As the hours dragged by, with safety in Cuba so agonizingly near and yet still so far away, Loewe grew desperate. At around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, he walked away from the cabin he was sharing with his mother, his wife, and his two children, entered a lavatory on A Deck, and slashed his wrists with a straight razor. Loewe then staggered across the deck of the ship to the very spot where Moritz Weiler’s body had been committed to the ocean, climbed the railing, and leaped overboard into the harbor. He thrashed about in the water, shouting, “Murderers! They will never get me!” until a St. Louis seaman leaped in after him and managed to get him into one of the police boats that had been hovering nearby. The authorities rushed Loewe to Calixto Garcia Hospital, where he was heavily sedated and admitted to a guarded, private room for treatment. His family was not allowed to leave the ship to visit him.

  From that hour onward, the stakes soared. One of the Cuban newspapers not controlled by the Rivero family, the Havana Post, sent a reporter down to the docks to file a story about the St. Louis. His dispatch concluded, “Witness the care-worn faces of old and young, their once bright eyes grown dull with suffering, and your heart will go out to them. Witness the stark terror in their expressions, and you will realize they cannot be sent back to Germany.” Reporters from several international newspapers, who had come to Havana to cover the ship’s arrival, sent word home describing the plight of the refugees. In response to the newspaper stories, telegrams began to flood the American consulate in Havana insisting that something be done.

  Onboard the St. Louis, a committee of passengers was formed, headed by a lawyer, Josef Joseph, who, oddly enough, had been a friend of Joseph Goebbels many years earlier. The committee sent a cable to the wife of President Bru, pleading with her to intercede with her husband on their behalf: “Over 900 passengers, 400 women and children, ask you to use your influence and help us out of this terrible situation. The traditional humanitarianism of your country and your woman’s feelings give us hope that you will not refuse our request.” Similar telegrams were sent to prominent figures in the United States, but the committee decided to wait for further developments before calling on President Roosevelt.

  Meanwhile, negotiations continued. Only yards from the St. Louis, a seaplane landed in Havana Harbor bearing two representatives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, known in familiar parlance as the Joint. One of them, Cecilia Razovsky, had arrived with the hope of caring for the refugees once they were allowed to disembark. The Joint’s other emissary was Lawrence Berenson, a Harvard-educated lawyer and the former president of the Cuban-American Chamber of Commerce. He spoke fluent Spanish; had been a personal friend of Fulgencio Batista, chief of staff of the Cuban army; had extensive business experience in Cuba; and had obtained legal visas that had enabled hundreds of German Jews to emigrate to Cuba. Berenson exuded absolute confidence in his ability to work out a deal.

  But President Bru would not be budged—not by telegrams, not by a personal request from American ambassador Butler Wright, and most especially not by Lawrence Berenson. Bru actively disliked Berenson, thinking him an arrogant Yankee wheeler-dealer. Furthermore, Berenson’s friendship with Batista, which the American thought was one of the most useful arrows in his quiver, was actually a mark in his disfavor as far as President Bru was concerned. Batista, after all, was the mentor of Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, whose landing certificate scheme was at the heart of this whole affair. At a chilly face-to-face meeting on Thursday, June 1, President Bru informed Berenson that he had ordered the St. Louis to depart Cuban waters the following day and that no further negotiations would take place until after the ship had sailed. Should any resistance arise, the president added, the Cuban navy would be placed on alert to escort the ship out of the harbor.

  On Friday morning, June 2, Milton Goldsmith of the local Jewish Relief Committee came on board the St. Louis to tell the frightened passengers that everything possible was being done to ensure their ultimate safety. Captain Schroeder, well aware of the refugees’ worst fears, declared, “I give you my word that I will do everything possible to avoid going back to Germany. I know only too well what they would do to you.” But shortly after 11 a.m., Goldsmith returned to his office, the captain gave the order “dead slow ahead,” and the ship began its journey northward. Max Loewe remained in Calixto Garcia Hospital—without his family—reducing the number of St. Louis refugees to 907. As Havana slowly faded astern, many passengers stood on deck and wept openly. Josef Joseph, the chairman of the passengers’ committee, described the scene in his diary: “The sirens signaled the engines and we were moving out of Havana into the sunlit blue Caribbean. Crowds filled every space along the shoreline, waving, weeping, and watching with great sadness. An indescribable drama of human concern and despa
ir played on us as we sailed into the twilight of uncertainty. This is one of the most tragic days on board because we feel cheated of the freedom we had hoped for. What started as a voyage of freedom is now a voyage of doom.”

  Some press reports indicated that as many as one hundred thousand people watched from the shore to bid adios to the departing ship. Many of them were only too pleased, whether for economic or political or anti-Semitic reasons, to witness the exodus. But there were expressions of sympathy as well. On Sunday, June 11, the Cuban magazine Bohemia published a long prose poem titled A La Habana Ha Llegado Un Barco. It read, in part:

  To Havana has come a boat. 907 courageous human beings poised at the rail of the St. Louis. Cuba! Like dozing lizards, the luminous advertisements flicker on the buildings. Automobiles glide swiftly by on the Malecon. Hands grasp the rail, eyes bright with the light of hope, skins reddened by the winds of the Atlantic. 907 Jews on the deck of the St. Louis. 907 hearts overflowing with hope.

  Behind them lies Hamburg with its dirty chimneys and smoke, mixing with the cold gray wind of the North Sea. And the eyes of the men, women, and children shine with a spirit of hope. Each also with tears in his eyes carried with him the memories of barricades, of concentration camps. Some had signs of the chains carried on their wrists. Almost everyone left someone of his own behind, friends, lovers. But now, another turn of life, a marvelous life among sane, just, tolerant people.

  We will begin life anew. Cuba is a beautiful land. No longer any fear of nocturnal visits from the police. Now, a new life in the open. Here we will eat fruits we have never eaten before: fragrant pineapples and mangos that look like hearts of gold. It’s like a miracle, a delicious miracle . . . Cuba!

  The order has come down. No one is permitted to disembark! 907 hearts are filled with anguish. Cuba a stone’s throw away! Terra firma before one’s eyes! The possibility of a new and free life! Trembling hands clutch the rail of the St. Louis. A child is crying as though someone were beating her. In the stern of the ship sits an old woman, small and wizened like a dried chestnut. She wipes tears from her eyes without making a sound. She is crying, without shame, without consolation.

  The St. Louis departed. The order allowed no exceptions. O dear child, in Cuba you will eat fruits you have never before tasted: fragrant pineapples and mangos that look like hearts of gold.

  For the next four days, the ship treaded water through the ninety miles that separated Cuba from Florida, twice sailing so close to the American mainland that passengers could see the lights of downtown Miami. Onboard, the refugees’ spirits were raised by a rumor that an anonymous Jewish philanthropist had offered to allow the vessel to land at his private island off the coast of Louisiana—a rumor that turned out to be unfounded. U.S. Coast Guard cutters shadowed the ship to ensure there were no attempts at swimming to shore, and the immigration inspector in Miami, Walter Thomas, made it clear that so long as the Cuban authorities were still debating their final decision on the case, the St. Louis would not be permitted to dock at any American port.

  Back in Havana, the standoff continued. On Saturday, June 3, President Bru offered to allow the St. Louis to land in Cuba if the Joint Distribution Committee would post a bond of $500 per passenger, or a total payment of $453,500, plus guarantees for clothing, food, and housing. In retrospect, it seems that the agony of the refugees could have ended there, had Lawrence Berenson simply accepted those terms. But the lawyer, versed as he thought he was in the ways of Latin America, concluded that President Bru’s declaration was nothing more than an opening bid. Berenson cabled his colleagues at the Joint that he was convinced that if they kept out of it and left matters entirely in his hands, he could save them “a considerable amount of money,” and made a counteroffer of $443,000.

  The difference in those two figures, the considerable savings that Berenson hoped to realize, works out to $11.58 per passenger. It may be a foolish reaction, one utterly detached from reality, but I know that I would be more than happy to pay a fee of $23.16 to purchase the lives of Alex and Helmut.

  Berenson had badly miscalculated. President Bru was not interested in bargaining. On the morning of Tuesday, June 6, the Cuban government declared that negotiations over the matter of the St. Louis had been “terminated.” The president sent a telegram to James Rosenberg, the acting chairman of the Joint, that read in part, “You know, dear Mr. Rosenberg, that Cuba has contributed in relation to its resources and population to a greater extent than any other nation in order to give hospitality to persecuted people. But completely impossible to accede to this immigrant entry into national territory. Subject St. Louis is completely closed by the government. Regretfully reiterate the impossibility of their entry into Cuba. Wish to assure you of my sincere friendship.”

  Rosenberg replied, “Deeply as we regret the decision of your government we wish to assure you that we are mindful and appreciative of the traditional hospitality of Cuba to the refugees who have found a haven in your country. With sincere wishes and expressions of great respect.”

  The U.S. government and its representatives had been monitoring the St. Louis situation for the past ten days, but they maintained that it was solely an internal matter for Cuba to work out with no interference from its Good Neighbor to the north. However, after President Bru had announced his final decision, Coert du Bois, the American consul-general in Havana, did weigh in, curtly telling Berenson that he and his “co-religionists in New York” had botched the case by moving it “off the plane of humanitarianism and onto the plane of horse-trading.”

  For its part, the Joint issued a press release declaring that it was “bending every effort to find a haven for the 907 unfortunate refugees of the St. Louis, most of them women and children, and continues ready to furnish the necessary funds for their aid.” But the sometimes conflicting communiqués released by the committee had begun to torment American relatives of the St. Louis passengers. Within days of President Bru’s declaration, the Joint received a letter from Eric Godal of Riverside Drive in New York City:

  I don’t know I am asking too much, if I want to know what the fate of the 900 passengers of the ‘St Louis’—between them my mother—will be. I got informations like that: Friday, greater N.Y. Committee: 4:30 PM: ‘We are still in conference with Cuba. Everything is in our hand.’ 5 minutes later I called your Committee: ‘There are no conferences with Cuba any more and the boat will not be stopped because there is no hope for other negotiations.’

  In the last 24 hours no news at all. I even don’t know anymore what kind of a message I shall give my mother to console her. Shall I tell her that you are in conference still with Cuba? Or that there are no conferences at all any more? That the boat will go to Europe back now? That they should be prepared for the worst?

  I know you will understand the torture of that uncertainty now spread out over weeks even you have no mother or relativs on bord. And if you understand, you will give a statement to the unhappy on bord and their relativs what they are going to exspect now after all those terrible days.

  At 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6, the day President Bru announced the termination of his government’s involvement with the refugees, Captain Gustav Schroeder received a terse cable from Claus-Gottfried Holthusen, director of the Hamburg-America Line. It read simply, “Return Hamburg Immediately.” At 11:40, from a location about twelve miles off Jacksonville, Florida, Captain Schroeder ordered his helmsman Heinz Kritsch to bring the ship onto a course of east by northeast. The St. Louis was headed back to Germany.

  The passengers’ committee, led by Josef Joseph, decided that the time had finally come to appeal directly to President Roosevelt for permission to land somewhere in the United States. They sent a telegram to the White House pleading, “Help them, Mr. President, the 900 passengers, of which more than 400 are women and children.”

  The text of the telegram was printed in the June 7 edition of the New York Times. That paper and a number of other news outlets had been reporting the tale of t
he unhappy refugees aboard the St. Louis for more than a week, galvanizing American public opinion. There were marches in the streets of New York, Washington, Chicago, and Atlantic City, the demonstrators calling on the Cuban government to allow the St. Louis passengers to disembark in Havana. Walter Winchell, broadcasting his radio program to “Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea,” insisted that the root of the issue was the root of all evil: not the failure to touch Cuban hearts but the “failure of touching Cuban palms. And we don’t mean trees.” Another telegram arrived at the White House addressed to President Roosevelt, this one from a number of Hollywood actors, among them Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson. It read, “In name of humanity urge you bring all possible influence on Cuban authorities to radio return of German liner St. Louis, now at sea returning over nine hundred refugees to imprisonment and death in Nazi Germany Urge Cuba give at least temporary shelter until another refuge can be found in democratic country.”

  Editorials in the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Record, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch all decried the treatment of the Wandering Jews of the Caribbean and stated forthrightly variants of the sentiment “something must be done.” On June 8, in an editorial titled simply “Refugee Ship,” The New York Times declared, “The saddest ship afloat today, the Hamburg-American liner St. Louis, with 900 Jewish refugees aboard, is steaming back toward Germany after a tragic week of frustration at Havana and off the coast of Florida. No plague ship ever received a sorrier welcome. At Havana the St. Louis’s decks became a stage for human misery. The refugees could see the shimmering towers of Miami rising from the sea, but for them they were only the battlements of another forbidden city. Germany, with all the hospitality of its concentration camps, will welcome these unfortunates. The St. Louis will soon be home with its cargo of despair.”