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 Havana carrying approximately nine hundred German Jews, who were fleeing
Nazi Germany and seeking asylum. This attempted escape has been referred to as
The Voyage of the Damned.
The Cuban government imposed a new visa fee of five hundred dollars and many
aboard did not have the money. Havana 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.
