(Don’t) Meet Me In Saint Louis
by Gerald A. Honigman
No…not that Saint Louis.
I’ve tried to keep out of the discussion regarding America’s policies towards millions of illegal aliens who now call the United States their home. I’m an educator, and I have this gut feeling that not a few of my students over the decades have come from such families. It is indeed a tough topic for me to deal with.
So, rather than tackle the subject head on, I’ve opted for a more cowardly approach…not my usual style. But my hope is that the following account will stimulate further discussion at what the costs of keeping things as they now are really are.
Mine is an unfortunately all-too-true story, one which most folks have never heard, and one which probably isn’t included in 99.999% of the history books used in schools. It’s the tragic saga of a German ocean liner and America’s less than honorable dealings with it. And it involves folks trying desperately to get into America.
After Kristallnacht the preceding year, by 1939 the handwriting on the wall was becoming apparent to even ostriches.
Jews who remained in Germany were having a harder time getting out because emigration policies had become stricter. Many countries (the United States in particular) had immigration quotas, and timely visas were almost impossible to acquire. So, the opportunity that the S.S. Saint Louis presented seemed like the last hope.
In the summer of 1939, 950 prominent German Jews–people whose families had contributed greatly to the Fatherland–thus fled for their lives out of Hamburg aboard the SS Saint Louis seeking asylum. More Jews fleeing Iran’s Ahmadinejad’s non-Holocaust…
The ship’s officers pleaded with America to allow their human cargo to land.
Roosevelt’s successor, President Truman, would later say, “the buck stops here”…but Roosevelt didn’t let the buck stop here. In fact, reports (admittedly disputed) stated that the U.S. Coast Guard was sent out to follow the ship to insure that no German Jews would land on American soil. Sort of like Allied bombers flying over the railroad tracks and crematoria en route for German industry near Auschwitz, but not sparing so much as one bomb for the death camps themselves.
Now, keep in mind that when most Jews hear the name Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they picture him sitting merely one step below the angels. There are, unfortunately, many ways to burst that bubble. For now, however, let’s just stick to the SS Saint Louis.
Whatever Roosevelt’s personal inclinations may or may not have been, he caved in to the blatant anti-Semitism of the day as exemplified by his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and from Southern Democrats, some of whom threatened to withhold support in the 1940 Presidential election if the Saint Louis was allowed to land. Keep in mind that most Jews still see voting for a Republican in the same light as sleeping with the Devil.
On June 4, 1939 Roosevelt issued an order denying entry to the ship, which was waiting in the Caribbean Sea between Florida and Cuba. Negotiations between the passengers and the Cuban government also later broke down.
The Jews were eventually forced to return to Europe where most–men, women, and children–perished at the hands of the Nazis. Shortly afterwards, agencies of the same American government were saving the lives of Nazi war criminals and bringing them to the Americas.
There is a lesson here for both sides debating the status of illegals in our country today. And again, my own position may only seem like I’m trying to avoid taking one…
While those crossing the border today are looking for jobs, health benefits, brighter futures, and such–understandable desires–most of their lives are not in danger in their own native countries like those of the passengers of the SS Saint Louis. And America does have the right to assure that immigration is done in an orderly fashion…not making fools out of those who are trying to do it the right way.
Having said the above, there is still much that needs to be improved in the process, and those benefiting from cheap, alien labor should be held to account for their share of the problem.
And how do I tell at least probably some of my students that they have no right to want what America has to offer?
Yet I know that America can’t be the world’s savior on all counts.
Saving lives–which, for whatever reasons, America has rejected in the past at times–is, after all, not the same thing as being the guarantor of better lives for the entire rest of the world. The solution lies somewhere in between.
And somewhere in the above tragedy there is probably a lesson to be learned for both sides debating the status of illegals in our country today.
The solution must reflect all that truly makes America great…despite some ghosts like the SS Saint Louis in our closet.