It would become known,
with heartbreak and infamy, as the Voyage of the Damned.
Seventy-eight years ago, an ocean liner carrying more than 900 Jewish
refugees fleeing Adolph Hitler's Germany hovered aimlessly for 72
hours just a couple of miles off the Florida coast while Jewish
leaders in Washington frantically begged President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to let the passengers into the United States. So near, and
yet so far, one passenger murmured to her husband as they watched
traffic darting about Miami Beach.
Farther than she ever
guessed. Roosevelt said no, and the SS St. Louis sailed back to
Europe, where World War II was just weeks away. Many of the
passengers would fall back into the hands of the Nazis they were
trying to escape. About 250 of them did not survive the war.
Eva Weiner was one of
those passengers. She was a young girl and she and her family were
trying to escape from Europe. Eva, sit down with our Hometown
Histories crew to discuss this tragic story.
Dallas Grove is the host
of this episode and Executive Producer; Produced by Ted Dellinger and
Joe Bove; Music is by Bill Madden.
Funding for Hometown
Histories was provided by the New Jersey Cultural Trust.
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