Alex's Wake (19 page)

Years later, in his memoirs, Captain Schroeder attempted to convey how the trauma of rejection played out among the most innocent of the blameless citizens of the
St. Louis
. He described a game he saw a group of children playing. Two boys guarded a gateway made out of chairs, fierce expressions on their faces, as other children attempted to enter. “Are you a Jew?” the guards would ask, and if the answer was yes, the reply was a sharp, “No Jews allowed!”

The captain, who from the beginning of the crisis had been aware of his passengers' overwhelming desire not to return to Germany, began to devise an audacious plan to save them, should all other means of rescue prove impossible. Schroeder cleared his idea with three of his most trusted officers and with Josef Joseph of the passengers' committee. As a last resort, said the captain, he was prepared to run the
St. Louis
aground off the Sussex coast of England, set her on fire, and evacuate the refugees to shore.

For many on board the ship, Alex and Helmut among them, that plan, ill conceived as it probably was, might ultimately have worked out for the best. But no such dramatics proved necessary, thanks to the efforts of another member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee: its European director, Morris Troper.

Born in New York City in 1892, Morris Carlton Troper attended City College and later New York University, achieving both a master's of commercial science degree and a law degree. He earned his living as a certified public accountant for many years, and indeed that is how he was remembered in the headline of his obituary in the
New York Times
in 1962. But it is for his work with the Joint Distribution Committee that Troper was most greatly honored in his lifetime.

He began his association with the Joint in the immediate aftermath of World War I, when on behalf of the committee, he investigated the conditions of Jewish refugees in Poland, Hungary, and other countries in Eastern Europe. His travels for the Joint took him to the Soviet Union in 1929 and 1936 and to Germany in 1933, where he spent six
months observing firsthand the effects of Nazi policies on the Jews. In 1938, Troper was appointed the committee's European chairman, overseeing its operations from the Joint's Paris offices. In early June of the following year, he took on the task of finding a haven for the
St. Louis
.

On June 10, having accepted his assignment from the Joint's American chairman, Paul Baerwald, Troper received two dire telegrams from the Joint's New York office, underscoring the gravity of the situation. One read: “Any immigration this side of water is out of question. This we have not communicated to passengers but wish you to know.” And the other advised, “Regard these passengers as doomed once they reach German soil. Time is of essence. Boat has completed more than half of trip.”

After first considering and then rejecting Morocco as a possible sanctuary, Troper decided to focus his efforts on European relief agencies that had received financial support from the Joint. His first call went to Max Gottschalk of the Refugee Committee of Belgium, vowing that the Joint would guarantee $500 for each refugee accepted and that the refugees would not become a public burden. The next morning, Gottschalk spoke with the Belgian minister of justice, who consulted with the prime minister, who briefed King Leopold III, who agreed that Belgium would accept 250 of the
St. Louis
refugees. The dilemma that had occupied the Cuban and American governments for weeks was settled in Belgium within twenty-four hours.

With this immensely important breakthrough achieved, Troper turned his attention to three other countries: Holland, France, and England. He called his contact at the Refugee Committee of Amsterdam, who knocked on the door of the Dutch minister of justice, who approached Queen Wilhelmina. On Monday morning, June 12, the justice minister, Carolus Goseling, announced that Holland would accept 194 of the refugees. Within two years, Justice Goseling would be murdered in the German concentration camp Buchenwald.

With these two destinations in hand and with negotiations proceeding smoothly in France and England, Troper sent a telegram to Captain Schroeder: “Wish inform you making every effort land your passengers with several possible prospects enroute which we hope will become definite next thirty-six hours.”

Troper's hope soon became a reality. In London, the Joint's Chairman Baerwald met with the American ambassador to England, Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the future president. Kennedy then delivered to authorities in the British government a letter from Baerwald spelling out the same terms—$500 per passenger and a guarantee that the refugees would not become public burdens—that had been accepted by Belgium and Holland. Meanwhile, Troper met with Louise Weiss, the director of the Central Refugee Committee in Paris. Weiss then spoke with Alexis Leger, the French foreign minister, and Albert Sarrault, the interior minister. By the evening of June 12, the governments of France and England had agreed to accept about two hundred fifty refugees each.

On the night of Tuesday, June 13, a week after the
St. Louis
had headed back to Europe and exactly a month since her departure from Hamburg, Troper cabled the ship from Paris with the happy news of his successful negotiations: “Final arrangements for disembarkation all passengers complete. Governments of Belgium, Holland, France, and England cooperated magnificently with American Joint Distribution Committee to effect this possibility.”

The passengers' committee wired back, “The 907 passengers of St. Louis dangling for last thirteen days between hope and despair received today your liberating message of 13th June that final arrangements for all passengers have at last been reached. Our gratitude is as immense as the ocean on which we have been floating since May 13, first full of hope for a good future and afterwards in the deepest despair. Accept Mr. Chairman for you and for the American Joint Distribution Committee and last but not least for the governments of Belgium, Holland, France and England the deepest and eternal thanks of men women and children united by the same fate on board the St. Louis.”

After breakfast the next morning, in the presence of Captain Schroeder, the committee read Troper's telegram to the assembled passengers. The news was met with unrestrained cheering and sobs of joy. They were Wandering Jews no more.

Captain Schroeder now set a course for Antwerp, Belgium, where the
St. Louis
would finally make landfall and where the other three countries of asylum would make arrangements to accept their respective
refugees. Meanwhile, there were hastily arranged gatherings in all four countries, as both public and private organizations met to hammer out the details of this immense humanitarian undertaking.

One such meeting occurred in Paris on the morning of Thursday, June 15, in the office of Amédeé Bussières, the chief of the French national police. Troper attended, as did Louise Weiss of the Parisian refugee committee and Raymond-Raoul Lambert, representing the most visible national Jewish relief organization, the
Comité d'Assistance aux Réfugiés
. Everyone agreed at the outset that, generous as this offer from the French government had been, no one should assume that a precedent had been set; this was strictly a onetime gesture made under extraordinary circumstances. Weiss suggested that the French ministry of foreign affairs should work with the other three countries to issue an official communiqué making that position explicitly clear.

Bussières, with a meaningful glance at Troper, declared his regret that “our American friends” had not accepted the
St. Louis
refugees when they were on their doorstep but rather sent them back to Europe. But Bussières then went on to say that the French government would not accept the Joint's generous offer of $500 per passenger. Rather, he said, the various French refugee organizations, working in tandem with their American counterparts, should share the costs of providing for the refugees until such time—and surely that time would come soon—that the unfortunate displaced persons would find a permanent home. Lambert gave his agreement and, after a decision that the French refugees would be transported to Boulogne-sur-Mer once they'd landed in Antwerp, the meeting adjourned. Everything seemed to be under control.

Troper and his wife, Ethel, spent the night of Friday, June 16, in a comfortable room of the Century Hotel in Antwerp, where the
St. Louis
was due to arrive the next day. At 4 a.m. on Saturday, the Tropers met in the lobby of their hotel with a contingent of sixteen people representing the four welcoming countries. They traveled in three cars to the Dutch city of Vlissingen, known in English as Flushing, a port town located at the head of the estuary leading to Antwerp. The journey was delayed when one of the cars suffered a flat tire, but the traveling party managed to meet for a quick cup of coffee in a restaurant in downtown
Vlissingen before going to the police station. There Troper signed the necessary papers to obtain a permit to board a tugboat that would take everyone out to the site where the
St. Louis
had dropped anchor.

It was a misty, foggy morning. Shortly after 9 a.m., the tugboat left the dock at Vlissingen and made its way through rough seas out to the ship. The scene was recorded by a representative of the Joint:

No words can describe the feelings of everyone on the tug when sighting the
St. Louis
with its human cargo, all standing as one man along the rails of the port side of the steamer. Although those strained moments seemed to be long hours, yet it took only a few seconds for the tug to find itself alongside the
St. Louis
, with all passengers waving and yelling in unison. Mr. Troper was met on board the steamer in the hallway, lined on each side by the children of the passengers, one hundred on each side. From every corner of the boat, the grown-up passengers called to Mr. Troper, “God bless you!” A little girl, Liesl Joseph [the daughter of Josef Joseph], eleven years old this very day, stepped forward, greeted Mr. Troper and, in German, welcomed him with these words: “We, the children of the
St. Louis
, wish to express to you our deep thanks from the bottom of our hearts for having saved us from a great misery. We pray that God's blessing be upon you. We regret exceedingly that flowers do not grow on ships; otherwise we would have presented to you the largest and most beautiful bouquet.”

Visibly moved, Troper bent to kiss Liesl, then straightened to shake the hand of her father, the head of the passenger committee. But there was business to attend to and a deadline to reckon with; the 907 refugees had to be divided into the groups bound for the four countries, and everything had to be worked out in the short time it would take Captain Schroeder to steer the
St. Louis
down the estuary to Antwerp. At 7:00 p.m., a train was scheduled to leave for Brussels with the Belgian contingent of refugees aboard, so there was precious little time for idle pleasures.

The ship's first-class social hall became the site where each refugee would be assigned to one of the four countries. Troper and an assistant from the Joint, Emanuel Rosen, sat at a large table, flanked on one side by the representatives of Belgium and Holland, and on the other by those from France and England. The refugees were so delighted and relieved that they were finally on the verge of disembarking (and not doing so in Germany), that for the most part their destination was of secondary concern. Troper announced that he and his colleagues would do all they could to ensure that families were not broken up and to accede to special requests if a refugee insisted on being placed in a particular country. But for the most part, the selection was performed in a somewhat random manner, and thus, though Troper and his fellows had no way of knowing it, they casually if conscientiously made decisions that were to have profound implications for the lives of everyone on board.

Alex and Helmut would have had a legitimate reason for requesting an assignment to England, as Bertha had made arrangements to immigrate to Leeds as a gardener. Either they made such a request and were turned down or they reasoned that it didn't much matter where they disembarked, as the Nazis would no longer be a threat to them in any case. Had they been assigned to the English group, the odds are great that they would have survived to a natural old age. It's highly possible that my parents would then have chosen to flee to England to join their family when they escaped Germany two years later. Thus I could very well have been born and raised in that green and pleasant land.

But fate, or Morris Troper, determined that my grandfather and uncle would disembark in France.

By the time the
St. Louis
tied up at Pier 18 in Antwerp Harbor, the selection committee had determined that 214 refugees would be assigned to stay in Belgium. By 9 p.m., after consuming great quantities of sandwiches, beer, and coffee provided by the ship's kitchen, the selection committee had made its final determinations: 181 refugees would travel to Holland, 288 would go to England, and Alex, Helmut, and the six Karliners would be among 224 refugees bound for France.

Before the Belgian contingent left the ship, passengers' committee chairman Josef Joseph presented Troper with a Declaration of Thanks and Gratitude. It read, in part:

Dear Mr. Troper, at this moment when the 907 passengers of the
St. Louis
are to be distributed to the hospitable countries of England, Holland, France, and Belgium, after a fantastic trip to the tropics and back, we have this to say to you:

After we had to leave the harbor of Havana by order of the President, your intervention gave us the courage to believe that we had not been forgotten and left to our fate. Your act will be engraved forever in our hearts and in the hearts of our children and grandchildren. We shall never forget it. May God Almighty reward you and your colleagues in the JDC for what you have done. May it please God to bless your future work. And if in closing we ask you, dear Mr. Troper, not to forget the passengers of the
St. Louis
, we do this because we have all learned to love you and hope that you will think well of us.