By 1939 the
persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany was well under way. During Brú’s
presidency, the ocean liner MS St. Louis
arrived in Habana carrying approximately nine hundred German Jews, who were
fleeing Nazi Germany and seeking asylum. The Cuban government imposed a new
visa fee of five hundred dollars, and many aboard did not have the money.
Habana had a large, wealthy Jewish population and some of the Jews who were
able to get off the ship had Cuban relatives who paid the fee. Yet only about
thirty passengers were able to disembark. After being turned down by Cuba, the
United States, and Canada, a few more passengers found permanent asylum in
England. Of the remainder, who were left in various European ports, only
eighty-four escaped Europe, and at least 250 of the ship’s passengers were
among those who died at various death camps during the Holocaust.[i]
On the same shores
where these Jews lingered before being turned away, twenty-three years later,
Cubans were riddled with bullets while trying to escape their own totalitarian
regime. Cubans were only twenty-three years away from drowning in the same
ocean while trying to flee to freedom.
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August 16/2016
