While we were in Florida, Sam and I had an opportunity to visit two holocaust museums. One is located near Orlando in Maitland and another in St. Petersburg. We have been to the Holocaust museum in D.C. several times and I would recommend it to anyone planning to travel there.
The events surrounding World War 2 teach us that misinformation and persecution of groups of people no matter what their differences can lead to terrible consequences. My personal interest in the subject is to be sure we recognize oppression as its happening and not in hindsight. My father was one of the first American soldiers on the scene to liberate the Concentration camps, so I compare his memories with the accounts in the museums. Both museums had on display letters that have been written by the KKK which deny that it happened.
Both museums we visited continue to be active in their communities to teach about injustice and prejudice in the world today. The Maitland museum has a community program to counter bullying.
The UCC also has very good resources and anti-bullying initiatives and I would recommend that you look over this page on the ucc website; http://www.ucc.org/justice/children-and-youth/what-can-we-do-to-stop.html
The State of Florida passed legislation in 1994 that Holocaust education must be taught in public schools as;
- An investigation of human behavior
- An understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping
- An examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions by offering intensive training programs, curriculum materials, resources, and sustained support.
| On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi troops destroyed hundreds of synagogues, as well as 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and homes. Kristallnacht was the real beginning of the Holocaust. |  |
From 1933 to 1938, half of Germany’s 600,000 Jews remained in the country, because they believed that anti-Semitism would soon diminish. After Kristallnacht, they understood that they had to emigrate. Tens of thousands flooded foreign consulates throughout Germany for visas. The problem was that few countries were willing to accept them.
The S.S. St. Louis was part of the Hamburg-American Line. On May 13, 1939, six months after Kristallnacht, 937 men, women, and children, boarded the S.S. St. Louis for Cuba. 930 of them were Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution and were among the last to escape from Germany’s tightening restrictions on emigration.
The ship arrived near the Havana harbor two weeks later. The passengers were unaware that Cuba’s government had changed just a week before the ship had sailed and the new government would not honor their visas. The new administration ruled that only 28 passengers held valid passports and could enter the country.
Complicating the process was Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbel who had decided to exploit the case of the S.S. St. Louis and its passengers for his own purposes. Knowing that Jews would be coming into Cuba, Goebbels engineered an anti-Jewish hate campaign there. He spread misinformation that these Jewish immigrants were criminals and would be a threat to Cuba. In fact, because of Goebbels propaganda, five days before the S.S. St. Louis left Hamburg, 40,000 Cubans took part in a demonstration against Jewish immigration to Havana.
The ship stayed in the Havana harbor for one week, while officials tried to gain the admission of the rest of the passengers.
Now that the ship could not dock in Cuba, Captain Schroeder sailed it to the Florida coast. There he hoped that the United States would admit the passengers. Desperately trying to avoid a forced return to Germany and certain death, the passengers – more than 400 of whom were women and children, and many of whom actually had quota numbers to eventually enter the United States. The State Department sent word that it would not interfere in Cuban affairs and refused to allow the passengers to come ashore. In fact, even as the ship was entering Florida’s territories, the Coast Guard had fired a warning shot in its direction. There was no choice but to turn back toward Germany.
Sailing up and down both coasts of Florida, the St. Louis was shadowed by a Coast Guard ship to prevent passengers from swimming to freedom in the United States. Passengers recalled being able to see cities like Miami from the liner, but were unable to go that short distance to freedom.
Passengers pleaded with world leaders to give them asylum so that they could avoid going back to Germany. The Joint Distribution Committee and other agencies did manage to persuade four countries to admit them. They were Belgium, Holland, France, and England. Within a year, however, the Nazis occupied the first three of these countries and most of the passengers eventually died in concentration camps. Only those in England were saved.
For Hitler, the case of the S.S. St. Louis proved that, in spite of the protests of the Allied leaders to the contrary, they didn’t want Jews in their countries any more than he wanted them in his. In fact, when a Canadian official was asked how many Jews fleeing from Nazi Europe could be admitted to Canada, he responded: “None is too many.” which eventually became the title of a book, describing Canada’s disastrous refugee policies.
Unfortunately, our own government succumbed to the anti-Semitic and conservative pressures of the State Department and placed severe restrictions on the refugee quotas.
The Florida Holocaust connection reminds us how we view history through the lens of our place in life. Let's hope that people of goodwill will have the courage to do the right thing when the times demand. It's a call to keep our ears open to the world's need. If you're in the St. Petersburg area, it's well worth visiting the Florida Holocaust Museum.
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