The Unwanted
There are too many periods of history that have turned my blood to ice and left me feeling utterly wretched and despairing of human cruelty. All too often, buried beneath the well-known stories of horror and agony, wait the little-known tales of tragedy, those that have been swept under the carpet or pushed to one side. Recently, I read The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa, a narrative documenting a heart-breaking episode in the hell that was World War II.
The novel made me want to know more and so I began poring over records, which led me to one woman. Her name is Gisela Knepel (now Feldman).
Gisela lived with her parents and younger sister Sonja in Berlin. Life was comfortable until the insidious fingers of the Nazis stole into their world in the early 1930s. Suddenly, Jewish people were under threat, their very existent seemingly abhorrent. Their businesses were boycotted, their homes vandalised, verbal and physical assaults were made against them. On 28 October 1938, the SS raided Gisela’s home and arrested her father Leo, deporting him to his homeland of Poland. Gisela’s mother Chaja was in shock, while Sonja screamed at the officers to leave her father alone. Gisela did the only thing she could do for her papa: she went to the kitchen and made sandwiches for his journey.
More atrocities continued, with the infamous Kristallnacht in November 1938. The streets cried out to the sounds of smashing glass, the pavements littered with the splinters. In an interview given when Gisela was 92, she said, “The morning after Kristallnacht I went to see if my aunts were ok, I remember crushing glass under my feet near my synagogue”.
As all over Germany, Gisela and her remaining family were evicted from their home. A good, “pure” German family moved in. Gisela, Sonja, and their mother moved in with their aunt.
They knew they had to leave Germany and do so as quickly as possible.
The German authorities wanted to rid the country of Jewish people, but there was nowhere for them to go; most other countries were reluctant to take in refugees. Chaja looked deep within herself and found the determination to survive. Every day, she went out in search of the visas that would give them a chance to live. At that point, any country would have done. When it became known that the Cuban embassy had visas for sale, Chaja did all she could to make sure she obtained those documents for her family. Visas were on sale for between $200 and $300, around $3000 to $5000 in today’s money. Considering the German authorities had confiscated everything of value it is awe-inspiring that anyone managed to find the money to buy the documents. Finally, and after enormous effort, Chaja bought four visas the day before the ship was due to sail.
The family had lived in hope that Leo would be able to return to Germany and join them on their escape to a new life. Sadly, his transit visa never arrived. In a heart-breaking telephone call, he begged Chaja to wait for him, but in a move that must surely have ripped her heart in two she told him that she had to take their two girls to safety. She managed to arrange for him to sail on a ship leaving two weeks later and hoped that his documents would arrive by then.
On the day of departure, Gisela felt a stomach-churning mixture of emotions. On one hand, they were leaving a country that had grown to despise them. But on the other hand they were leaving everything they knew and loved behind. Cuba was only to be a temporary stop until they could proceed to America. Nothing was certain in such an uncertain world.
The authorities forced the escaping Jewish people to pay for a return ticket, something that made zero sense considering the Nazis wanted them gone. They also stipulated that each person could only take ten reichsmarks with them (although many sneaked more money on board).
The SS St Louis, a luxury cruise liner, felt like a different world to the people who had been brutalised for so long. Soon, the fear and worry wore off and the teenage Gisela actually began enjoying herself. Gisela said, “The meals were wonderful and we were served by waiters! We’d never experienced such luxury. We played games on the sports deck, enjoyed films in the cinema, shows in the theatre and dances. There was a holiday atmosphere and we enjoyed the fun”.
While some of the crew certainly resented having to wait on 937 “impure” Jewish people, the captain of the ship did everything he could to look after his passengers. Captain Gustav Schröder removed a portrait of Hitler in the main dining room, welcomed traditional prayer nights on Friday, ensured his crew were respectful to the travellers, and did all he could to make such an unusual journey seem perfectly normal and comfortable.
However, all was not well behind the scenes. Cuba didn’t want the refugees after all.
The St Louis arrived on 27 May 1939. The passengers gathered on deck to watch their new haven come into view, their cases packed ready to go. But it soon became apparent that things were not going to plan.
Gisela said, “At first, we just thought the liner was too big to enter the harbour. The launch police told us there was ‘a bit of a problem’. They kept saying ‘mañana’ — ‘tomorrow’ — but mañana never came. We remained in the harbour for almost a week. The shore looked beautiful. We saw the palm trees and little boats buzzing around. But the pleasure we felt at the view was soon overtaken by anxiety. Many of those little boats contained relatives of passengers. They called out names as they circled the ship. I remember one man shouting to his wife: ‘Throw my son down. At least I will have him.’”
What the passengers didn’t know was that Cuban President Federico Laredo Bru had issued a decree just a week before the ship sailed that invalidated all recently issued landing certificates. A new law had been passed which stated that the passengers could only disembark if they paid a $500 bond. Nobody could afford that.
The passengers know found themselves in limbo. The documents they had bought from the Director-General of the Cuban immigration office, Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, were now illegal. They had no money to pay the bond. Added to that, was the bitterness directed at the Jewish people: Cuba was experiencing great financial strain in terms of scarcity of employment. The country had already accepted a large number of refugees, including 2500 Jewish people, and they didn’t want any more competing with the few jobs available.
Negotiations came and went to no avail. Gisela recalls that one member of the negotiating team came on board and began talking about Germany. It all proved too much for some passengers, many of whom who had suffered dreadfully at the hands of the Nazis. Gisela said, “I saw one passenger walk towards the railings with blood dripping from his wrist. He jumped overboard but was rescued by a sailor. The passengers formed a committee. Even we youngsters helped to patrol the ship to watch out for suicide attempts. There was talk of scuttling the ship if it returned to Germany.”
Gisela and Sonja had already seen more agony and hatred in their young lives than anyone should ever see. And yet now, they were on suicide watch, keeping their young eyes trained on the desperate adults.
The passengers on board the St Louis were unwanted. In the end, only a handful of people were allowed to leave the boat and set foot upon Cuban soil.
On 2 June 1938, the ship was ordered to leave Cuban waters and return to Germany. With a heavy heart, Captain Schröder set sail, but he had no intention of returning to the country that would surely murder his passengers. Instead, he set sail for the United States, anchoring just outside Florida. Here, he pleaded with the authorities there, but the pleas fell on deaf ears.
“Whenever we got near the American coast, a gunboat was sent out to prevent anyone swimming ashore. Many of the passengers had USA quota numbers for eventual entry to the country, but nobody was allowed off. All our pleas were ignored. A telegram was sent to President Roosevelt and, when that failed, a plea to at least save the children was sent to Mrs Roosevelt. She never replied. By the time we left Miami on June 7, we were running out of food and water. There were no more games, dancing or fun. Just anxiety. We felt helpless, hopeless, unwanted”, Gisela said.
Their fate was uncertain. But Captain Schröder refused to give up. On 10 June, the passengers learned that their cause had been taken up by the Refugee Committee in Paris. Belgium, France, Holland and the United Kingdom had agreed to divide the refugees up between them and give them a home.
In a curious twist of fate, a telegram arrived for Gisela and her family. Leo had managed to get on board the ship Chaja had arranged for him, only for the captain of that ship to turn around and return to Germany when the fate of the St Louis had been discovered. The telegram contained only two words:
“Choose England”
Gisela, Sonja and Chaja arrived in Southampton on 21 June. They had spent over five weeks at sea, endured a cramped and uncomfortable journey from Antwerp to England in a cargo ship, but they were safe. Leo did not survive.
Gisela married and settled down in Didsbury, England. When she was 50, she secured a degree and made it her mission to teach people about what happened during that horrific time.
Of the 288 refugees the UK took in, only one died during WWII during an air raid in 1940. Of the remaining passengers, only 14% managed to escape before the German invasion of Western Europe. Just over half of the rest survived the Holocaust.
This shocking episode shows human nature at two extremes. It demonstrates the ease with which people can commit such wicked outrages against their fellow human beings, and the ease with which people can turn their backs on those in desperate need. Sadly, we still see this today, with the wretched “not in my backyard” sentiment. Conversely, it also shows people at their very best. Chaja moved heaven and earth to protect her children, Gisela, Sonja and the other children on board the St Louis did the unthinkable in monitoring the adults and preventing them from killing themselves, Captain Schröder refused to send his passengers to their deaths.
The passengers on board the SS St Louis were made to feel unwanted. Nobody should ever be made to feel that.
The men, women and children who have fought, survived and given their lives during past and present conflicts must never be forgotten.
