The German Girl (40 page)

When Berenson made a counterproposal reducing the amount of money demanded as surety by $23.16 per passenger, the Cuban president decided to break off negotiations and demanded that the ship leave
Cuban territorial waters by eleven in the morning on June 2. If this order was not obeyed, the
St. Louis
would be towed out into the open sea by the Cuban authorities.

The ship’s captain, Gustav Schröder, had protected his passengers ever since their departure from Hamburg, and began to do all he could to find a non-German port where they could disembark.

The
St. Louis
steamed for Miami, but when it came very close to the Florida coast, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government denied it entry into the United States. This refusal was repeated in Canada by the government of Mackenzie King.

The ship was therefore forced to head back across the Atlantic toward Hamburg. A few days before it arrived, Morris Troper, director of the European Committee for Joint Distribution, came to an agreement for several countries to take in the refugees.

Great Britain accepted 287; France, 224; Belgium, 214; and Holland, 181. In September 1939, Germany declared war, and the countries of continental Europe that had accepted the passengers were soon occupied by the armies of Adolf Hitler.

Only the 287 taken in by Great Britain were safe. Most of the remainder of the former
St. Louis
passengers suffered the horrors of war or were exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.

Captain Gustav Schröder commanded the
St. Louis
one further time, and his return to Germany coincided with the outbreak of the Second World War. He did not set to sea again but was given desk jobs in the shipping company. The
St. Louis
was destroyed during Allied air raids on Germany. After the war, during the denazification process, Captain Schröder was put on trial, but thanks to testimonies and letters in his favor from the
St. Louis
survivors, the charges against him were dropped. In 1949 he wrote the book
Heimatlos auf hoher See
, about the journey the
St. Louis
had made. In 1957 the federal government of Germany awarded him the Order of Merit for his services in the rescue of the refugees.

Captain Schröder died in 1959 at the age of seventy-three. On
March 11 of that year, Yad Vashem, the official Israeli institution dedicated to the conservation of the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, recognized him posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations.

In 2009 the United States Senate passed a resolution “acknowledging the suffering of those refugees as a result of the refusal by the governments of Cuba, the United States, and Canada to offer them political asylum.” In 2012 the US State Department apologized publicly for what had happened to the
St. Louis
, and invited the survivors to its headquarters so that they could tell their stories.

The year 2011 saw the unveiling in Halifax, Canada, of a monument financed by the Canadian government and known as
The Wheel of Conscience
. It recalls and deplores the refusal by that country to take in the refugees from the
St. Louis.

Until now, in Cuba, the tragedy of the
St. Louis
has been a topic absent from classrooms and history books. All the documents related to the arrival of the ship in Havana and the negotiations with Federico Laredo Brú’s government and Fulgencio Batista have disappeared from the Cuban National Archive.

To Johanna V. Castillo, my editor, who encouraged me to revisit the tragedy of the
St. Louis
. She was my first reader and the driving force behind this story.

To Judith Curr and the entire, fantastic team at Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books for believing in me, for your support, and for your thorough work on
The German Girl
.

To my grandmother Tomasita, the first person who told me, when I was a child, about the tragedy of the
St. Louis,
and sent me to have English lessons in Havana with a neighbor who had emigrated from Germany in 1939 and who was unjustly known in the neighborhood as “the Nazi.”

To Aaron, my Jewish friend in Havana.

To Guido, my Jehovah’s Witness friend at primary school.

To my aunt Monina, for her stories about being a pharmacy student at the University of Havana and for helping me get to know the life of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Cuba though her family.

To Lydia, “la madrina,” who relived for me her days as a student at Baldor during 1940s Havana.

To Scott Miller, head curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, an expert on the
St. Louis
tragedy, who provided access to more than 1,200 documents and put me in touch with survivors.

To Carmen Pinilla, for acting as my guide in Berlin, and for the care with which she read the first part of the book, and for her valuable advice.

To Nick Caistor, my translator, for capturing the essence and voice of Hannah and Anna in the English language version. Thank you for an excellent translation.

To Elaine, for your meticulous revisions to the English language edition.

To Néstor and Esther María, for their meticulous work as copy editors.

To Ray, for his support and trust.

To Mirta, who believed in this project from the outset.

To Mirta’s mother, who didn’t allow Hannah to leave without Leo.

To Carole, who fell in love with my novel even before reading it, and encouraged me to write it.

To María, who was moved as soon as she met the German girl, and who made sure Hannah was not entirely unhappy in Havana.

To Annie Philbrick, with whom I traveled to Cuba after writing the book. Thank you for being the first to read it in English, for your kind words, and for being the godmother of
The German Girl
.

To Leonor, Osvaldo, Romy, Hilarito, Ana María, Ovidio, Yisel, Diana, Betzaida, Rafo, Rafote, Herman, Sonia, Sonia María, Radamés, Gerardo, Laura, Boris: my family and friends, who patiently endured my obsession with the
St. Louis
.

To my mother and sister, who were more than the protagonists of these pages.

To Gonzalo, for his unconditional support, and for taking care of the family when I needed time to write.

To Emma, Anna, and Lucas, the true source of inspiration for this story.

To the 907 passengers on the
St. Louis
who were denied entry into Cuba, the United States, and Canada, to whom we shall forever be in debt.

What follows is a reproduction of the original list of the 937 passengers who boarded the ill-fated
St. Louis
and photographs that capture their quest for freedom.
The German Girl
is dedicated to them.

The materials included in this section were generously provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Julie Klein, photo by Max Reid.