Entry Visas: Jewish Refugees

German Jews Dept: Thursday, 72 years after the German ocean liner and its Jewish refugees were denied safe haven by Canada and its neighbours, the Congress and the federal government unveiled, on the Halifax waterfront, the world's first monument to this ignoble episode in North American history, according to Vancouver Sun. Like others on the ship, Herb Karliner's family had purchased entry visas for Cuba and was expecting to find asylum there at the end of the voyage and of all the campaigns pursued by the Canadian Jewish Congress since the end of the Holocaust, one of the most important, the group says, was building a memorial to the tragic voyage of the MS St. Louis. "It's a crowning event for us, because 72 years ago the Canadian Jewish Congress tried, and failed, to help these refugees," said Bernie Farber, the Congress chief executive. The St. Louis departed Hamburg on May 13, 1939, with 937 passengers, almost all German Jews fleeing persecution and imprisonment in their homeland in the months before the Second World War. As reported in the news.
@t canadian jewish congress, north american history