SS St. Louis
MS St. Louis surrounded by smaller vessels in its homeport of Hamburg.
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Germany | |
| Name: | St. Louis |
| Owner: | Hamburg-America Line |
| Port of registry: |
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| Builder: | Bremer-Vulkan Shipyards in Bremen, Germany |
| Laid down: | June 16, 1925 |
| Launched: | August 2, 1928 |
| Maiden voyage: | March 28, 1929 |
| Fate: | Scrapped in Bremerhaven, Germany, 1952 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 16,732 gross register tons (GRT) |
| Length: | 574 ft (175 m) |
| Beam: | 72 ft (22 m) |
| Propulsion: | M.A.N. diesels, twin triple-blade propellers |
| Speed: | 16 knots (30 km/h/18 mph) |
| Capacity: | 973 passengers (270 cabin, 287 tourist, 416 third) |
The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which its captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for over 900 Jewish refugees from Germany. After they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, and historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them died in death camps during World War II. The event was the subject of a 1974 book, Voyage of the Damned, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts. It was adapted for a 1976 U.S. film of the same title and a 1994 opera titled "St. Louis Blues" by Chiel Meijering.
Built by the Bremer Vulkan shipyards in Bremen for the Hamburg America Line, the St. Louis was a diesel-powered ship and properly referred to with the prefix "MS" or "MV", but she is often known as the "SS St. Louis". The ship was named after the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Her sistership was the Milwaukee. The St. Louis regularly sailed the trans-Atlantic route from Hamburg to Halifax, Nova Scotia and New York and made cruises to the Canary Islands, Madeira and Morocco. The St. Louis was built for both transatlantic liner service and for leisure cruises.
The St. Louis set sail from Hamburg to Cuba on May 13, 1939. The vessel under command of Captain Gustav Schröder was carrying 937 passengers, most of them Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. Captain Schröder was a non-Jewish German who went to great lengths to ensure dignified treatment for his passengers.
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Wikipedia