Why were Jewish refuges on the SS St. Louis denied entry to Cuba and Essay

Why were Jewish refuges on the SS St. Louis denied entry to Cuba and what decided their fate - Essay Example The Nazi ideology and policies targeted first of all Jews, who were considered as the most â€Å"inferior races† of all, on a hierarchy which included the â€Å"Herrenvolk† (Master race) of the â€Å"Volksgemeinschaft† (German national community) at the top and Jews at the bottom. In November 1938, the violent anti-Semitic campaign, called Kristallnacht, or â€Å"night of the broken glass† or also known as â€Å"Pogromnacht† started, in which Jewish homes and business were destroyed and up to 200 Jews were killed in Germany. After this incident, Germany’s 600,000 decided that it was time to leave and many European Jews fled for their lives. Hundreds of ships set their voyage crossed the Atlantic carrying thousands of immigrants to new lives, primarily in the United States. The S.S. St. Louis, owned by the Hamburg-American Line (Hapag) was one such ship (Stahl, 1999, para.1-12) On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis started its voyage from Hamburg, Germany, to Havana, Cuba. On the voyage, there were 937 passengers, almost all passenger were German Jews citizens, fleeing from the Third Reich and, some were from eastern Europe, and a few were officially â€Å"stateless†. Although the majority of the Jewish passengers had already applied for U.S. visas, and they had planned to have a temporary stay in Cuba until they could get their visa approval from the United State State Department, yet there were signals that political conditions in Cuba might keep the passengers from landing there.