History | |
---|---|
Germany | |
Name | St. Louis |
Owner | Hamburg-America Line |
Port of registry | |
Builder | Bremer-Vulkan Shipyards in Bremen, Germany |
Laid down | June 16, 1925 |
Launched | August 2, 1928 |
Maiden voyage | March 28, 1929 |
Fate | Scrapped in 1952 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Passenger Liner |
Tonnage | 16,732 gross register tons (GRT) |
Length | 574 ft (175 m) |
Beam | 72 ft (22 m) |
Propulsion | MAN diesels, twin triple-blade propellers |
Speed | 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
Capacity | 973 passengers (270 cabin, 287 tourist, 416 third) |
MS St. Louis was a diesel-powered passenger ship built by the Bremer Vulkan shipyards in Bremen for HAPAG, better known in English as the Hamburg America Line. The ship was named after the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Her sister ship, MS Milwaukee, was also a diesel powered motor vessel owned by the Hamburg America Line. St. Louis regularly sailed the trans-Atlantic route from Hamburg to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New York City, and made cruises to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain; and Morocco. St. Louis was built for both transatlantic liner service and for leisure cruises.[2]
In 1939, during the build-up to World War II, the St. Louis carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany intending to escape antisemitic persecution. The refugees first tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied permission to land. After Cuba, the captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take the Jews in, but both nations refused. He finally returned the ship to Europe, where various countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, accepted some refugees. Many were later caught in Nazi roundups of Jews in the occupied countries of Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and some historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them were killed in death camps during the Holocaust.[3] These events, also known as the "Voyage of the Damned", have inspired film, opera, and fiction.