- Headline
-
A Christian Plea for Wandering Jews
- Publication Date
- Sunday, June 11, 1939
- Historical Event
-
Jewish Refugees Desperately Seek Safe Harbor
This database includes 1,676 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 27
- Author/Byline
- Lilian C. Reitan
- Article Text
- As a human being, as a Christian, and as an American, I object to the treatment of 900 Jews aboard the ship "St Louis." Surely our country is not so near sinking to the bottom of the sea but that we could shelter these tortured people until some permanent settlement could be made.
If we turn aside those unhappy souls now, something tells me that some day we, too, may plead for mercy, and when we don't get it we may die just as tortured and without pity. We will either help these people or be known for what we really are, calloused, inhuman, un-Chrlstian and un-American.
The last time I defended the Jews I received threatening letters from Bund leaders In the U. S. A., belaboring me because surely, they contended, I must be a Jew and therefore my fate must be terrible. Nobody knows what "nordics" really are, but I stand as good a chance as any of being that rare thing, a pure "nordic," if there is any such a thing, and as such, I disclaim the undemocratic and unmentionable German leader. I would do this if I had to end my days in a dungeon as a result.
I am impatient that we should be ignorant of our human kinship with these people. After honest and thorough study I have never found that Jews differed from Gentiles, under the skin; even their skins are usually similar.—Lilian C. Reltan, Floyd, la. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Karen L.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: Jewish Refugees Desperately Seek Safe Harbor
- Voyage of the St. Louis (Encyclopedia Article)
- Voyage of the St. Louis (Online Exhibition)
- Voyage of the St. Louis (Animated Map)
- Seeking Refuge in Cuba, 1939 (Encyclopedia Article)
- Refuge in Latin America (Encyclopedia Article)
- United States and the Holocaust (Encyclopedia Article)
Bibliography
Baumel, Judith Tydor. Unfulfilled Promise: Rescue and Resettlement of Jewish Refugee Children in the United States, 1934–1945. Juneau, AK: Denali Press, 1990.
Breitman, Richard, and Alan M. Kraut. American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Feingold, Henry L., Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Gurock, Jeffrey S., ed. America, American Jews, and the Holocaust. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Hamerow, Theodor. While We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. New York: Norton, 2008.
Lipstadt, Deborah E., Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933–1945. New York: Free Press, 1986.
Wyman, David S. Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938–1941. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Zucker, Bat-Ami. In Search of Refuge: Jews and US Consuls in Nazi Germany, 1933–1941. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2001.
All articles about this event
