Alex's Wake (17 page)

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 despair 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: