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Voyage of the Damned

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German Jews flee Nazi Germany in May 1939 seek a home anywhere they can live. Corrupt Cuban immigration officials sell a boarding card to these refugees only to find the Cuban President has barred their way into the country. These Jewish refugees are stuck in Harvana harbor on the German passenger steamer SS St. Louis. Three people try to or commit suicide on the St. Louis. Eventually the shipped is forced to leave Cuban waters. Even President Roosevelt turns a blind eye and refuses to let these refugees land in American. Nazi propaganda has a field day as the Germans lambast those who criticize their policies but at the same time don't try to help. The authors do a great job of showing what happened. The German captain and most of the German crew do what they can to make the refugees comfortable. After the war, the captain is recognized for what he did for his passengers. He was certainly a kind hearted person.

This is a great book to read about the Holocaust. I learned a little known chapter in this and WWII. Both Nazi Germany, Cuba, and the United States turned their backs on the fate of over 900 people. A good read.

Three countries were involved in this unfortunate deceit issue concerning the betrayal of the Jews escaping Nazi Germany in 1939, passengers of the St. Louis ship.
1) Nazi Germany, 2) Imperial United States Of America, and 3) the corrupt, Island of the Republic of Cuba. All three countries while not necessarily working together contributed to the deaths of most of the passengers in the St. Louis ship that left Nazi Germany seeking refuge in the "Land of Freedom and Opportunity the U.S.A". The passengers were to stay briefly in Havana, and then continue to the neighboring country the U.S.A, but things did not work out as expected, the president of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want them and put pressure on the immoral government of Cuba run by the puppet president Federico Bru, and the armed forces General Ruben Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, who also supported the U.S. It was all about money, and the lives of the Jews were not important. The ship had to return to Europe and the passengers face concentration camps and execution. But the law of karma played a part too. Shortly afterwards President Roosevelt came down with an incurable disease at the time (polio) and was confined to a wheel chair for the rest of the war and his life, not being the same man as he was before. Nazi Germany was devastated by the allies and the country was almost destroyed. Most of the Nazi criminals were executed, bringing the Nazi government to its knees and last General Batista had to leave the country in 1959 before Fidel Castro and the communists arrived in Havana to execute him. Batista fled the country in the most humiliating conditions like a coward he sneaked out of Cuba in his private plane that landed unannounced in the neighboring country, the Dominican Republic. He pleaded for refuge. At the time the country (Dominican Republic) was run by one of the bravest men in the history of Latin America General Trujillo. Batista had to pay Gen. Trujillo an enormous amount of money (Millions) to stay in the Island before he was allowed to continued his journey to an Island in Europe(that he bought with all the money that he stole from Cuba and everyone else) where he rotted away without ever returning to his homeland again! This is a good example of betrayal and deceit. Read the book and buy the DVD, both can be purchased at Amazon.com