VOYAGE SURVIVORS RECALL TRAGIC QUEST

MON JUN 05 1989           ED: FRST
 SECTION: LOCAL             PAGE: 1B    LENGTH: 19.02" MEDIUM
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 SOURCE: DAN FROOMKIN Herald Staff Writer
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               VOYAGE SURVIVORS RECALL TRAGIC QUEST


      Fifty years to the day after they were chased off the Miami Beach coastline and back to war-torn 
Europe, 27 survivors of what has become known as the "Voyage of the Damned" gathered for an 
emotional round-trip cruise Sunday that was part reunion  and part remembrance.

      The 27 were among more than 900 Jewish refugees who tried to flee Nazi Germany in 1939 on the SS 
St. Louis, a cruise ship bound from Hamburg to Havana. Denied permission to dock in Havana, the ship 
wandered off the Florida coast looking for salvation.
      But the U.S. Coast Guard, enforcing the country's rigid immigration quotas, ordered the St. Louis off 
the coast on June 4, 1939. After the passengers returned to Europe, most died in the Holocaust.
      On board the Florida Princess Sunday, jammed in amid about 300 other guests, the survivors looked 
for familiar faces. Some found them, others didn't. They all swapped stories of having seen the buildings 
and palm trees of Miami before being forced to turn back, and they spoke of what it all meant.
      "We were not wanted -- abandoned by the world," said Susan Schleger, 68, of New York City, who 
was 18 when she was on board the St. Louis. She remembers drifting a few miles off the Florida coast. 
"Miami looked very tempting, lovely, glamorous," she said.
      "I think it's kind of a symbol of what happened," said Liane Reif-Lehrer, of Boston, who was only 4 in 
1939, but has written several articles about the journey. "The German government wanted to make a 
spectacle of the Jews. They were trying to show the world that nobody else wanted us either."
      For Ruth Kissinger, 59, the reunion had some bright points. She was looking for three friends she had 
made on board 50 years ago. "I thought of them a lot during these 50 years," said Kissinger, who lives in 
New Jersey. "I kept wondering what they looked like."
      Kissinger found her friends, who looked just like she'd imagined. "I was thrilled that they lived," she 
said.
         Many of the survivors lost family members, separated from them once they returned to Europe. "I'm 
thinking of the people who are not alive," said Sofi Aron, 77, of New York City, who survived along with 
her husband Alfred, 78. "It's very sad."
         When the St. Louis was forced to turn back, Capt. Gustav Schroeder managed to take it to Belgium 
instead of Germany. The passengers were resettled in England, France, Belgium and Holland. Those in 
England were safe, but when the Nazis invaded the other countries, many of the passengers were deported 
and killed.
      For his efforts, Schroeder became a hero to the passengers. They organized to bring his closest living 
relative, nephew Ernst Rolf, to the ceremonies from Hamburg.
         A brief religious service on board Sunday stressed the theme of the commemoration. Said Rabbi 
Barry Konovitch of Miami Beach's Cuban-Hebrew Congregation and one of the leaders of the 50th 
anniversary celebration: "We pray that in the intervening 50 years, mankind has learned its lesson: that it 
should never happen again."
      Survivors threw carnations off the front of the ship in memory of those who died. Then, before they 
returned to the Miami Beach Marina, they watched as the battered wreck of the Ostwind, an 85-foot 
wooden yacht that once belonged to Adolf Hitler, was dumped off a barge into the Atlantic Ocean, 
destined to become an artificial reef.
      Miami Beach Commissioner Abe Resnick, who came up with the idea of sinking the Ostwind, said it 
was a symbolic act, bringing life from a symbol of death.
      But several survivors felt the link between their tragedy and the sinking of the Ostwind was a dubious 
one. "It was absolutely nothing to do with us," said Hella Roubicek, 63, who flew in from California.
      Gertrude Mendels, 74, of Baltimore, said that her first trip back to South Florida since that day 50 
years ago was an emotional experience for her. "When the plane started to land -- I am not a very 
sentimental person, but I started crying," Mendels said. "It was the same landscape."
      Survivors said the story of the St. Louis should serve as a lesson to mankind. "People should look after 
people if they are in need," said Eric Spitz, 64, of Toronto. "History will always repeat itself."
      "Just remember," said Hans Wolfgang Philippi, 68, of San Francisco. "That's enough, if you really 
remember." ADDED TERMS:  end jewish refugee holocaust ship
END OF DOCUMENT.