Story: This is the story of the 8 hour day, and one of the larger private battles in US history. In 1894 the Cripple Creek Colorado mine owners lengthened the standard work day from 8 hour shifts, to 10 hour shifts, at the same pay of 3$ a day. The miners unionized in a hurry and struck. By the end of Feb pretty much every mine in Colorado was shut down, although by Mar some had given in to the Union demands and others had succeeded in bringing in non-union workers from further away.
There were fights between striking miners and “scabs.” There was an incident were strikers ambushed 6 deputy sheriffs, leading to a fistfight and shots fired. Gov. Davis Waite, who was a Populist, called in 300 National Guard to observe the scene and keep the peace, and they did in fact find things peaceful. They went home, thinking the reports of chaos in the area had been exaggerated. The Unions and owners negotiated, but in May talks broke down.
The mine owners met with Sheriff Bowers of Colorado Springs, saying they were going to bring in hundreds of nonunion workers and asking if he could protect him. He said, nope, he was stretched too thin. So the mine owners offered to subsidize the pay of another 100 deputies, and the Sheriff began recruiting. The workers dug in, and fortified their camp on Bull Hill. The strikers began practicing military drills, and making military fortifications. May 24th, 125 deputies approached the fortified camp on Bull Hill, and the strikers used dynamite to blow a shafthouse 300 feet into the air as the deputies approached. The deputies fled with no shots fired, and the next night the mine backers agreed to finance a force of upto 1,200 additional deputies, and again recruitment began …
Gov. Waite got wind and ordered the strikers to disband their camp on Bull Hill, he ordered the deputies to stop recruiting and disband their private army of over a thousand deputies, declaring it an illegal body, and he ordered the state militia to get back to Cripple Creek ASAP. Waite met with the mine owners and the Union leader trying again to broker something, on the campus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. A lynch mob attempted to catch and kill the governor and union president Calderwood, but a local judge distracted the mob, while they escaped via a back route. The negotiators tried again, and by June 4th, both parties had reached an agreement, on an 8 hour day at 3$ an hour, and no retaliations, but also an agreement not to harass any nonunion workers that chose to remain.
But by this point Sheriff Bowers had lost control of his 1,300 man army, which marched on Bull Hill cutting telegraph and telephone wires, and imprisoning reporters. Again the state militia was send in and when they arrived on June 6th fighting was already taking place. There was gunfire exchanged between the two armies. As the head of the militia and Sheriff Bowers argued about what to do next, the Deputies charged the hill but were repulsed. The militia occupied the Hill, and the strikers gave them no resistance and they ordered the deputies to stand down. The deputies then occupied the town of Cripple Creek, arresting, imprisoning, dragging people from their homes and beating or clubbing them. So the militia came into town and began arresting the Deputies. By nightfall the state militia was in control. The mine owners refused to disband their army of deputies, at first, that had not be agreed to in the negotiations, but by June 11th they began standing down. To this day it is the only time in US history that a State Militia has intervened on the striker’s side.
The strike was a huge success for the Unions, and within a few years there were 54 occupations unionized in Cripple Creek, and the Western Federation of Miners was at the peak of its power. But the WFM was tarred with the brush of violence, and its 1898 strike did not go well, and as for 1903-4, well that usually gets called the Colorado Labor Wars these days. Public support went slowly against the miners, and Gov. Waite, and the Populist movement were defeated soundly in the Nov. elections that year, and never recovered, mostly because he was seen as being pro-labor. The mine owners also hardened their stance, and readied for the next round, turning to the Thiel Detective Agency, and the Pinkerton Detective Agency for security arrangements instead of impromptu last minute army-raising. And their combination of spies, lockouts, blacklisting, and strikebreaking proved much more effective. But just this once, the Gov. and the State Militia fought to defend the strikers against the attacks of the private army financed by the owners.
Gratitude
I am grateful for the 8 hour work day, or what is left of it.
I am grateful that private armies are still rare in the US.
I am grateful that government occasional intervenes for the people against armies gone wild, or even against the interests of the owners.
Other Notables for the day
YMCA founded 1844, Martyrdom of James Meredith (1966 civil rights activist), Martyrdom? of Robert Kennedy, Jr. (1968, politician), deaths of Patrick Henry (patriot), Louis Lumiere (pioneer of cinema), and Karl Jung (psychoanalyst), birth of Sandra Bernhard (comedian)
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
June 5th – Tank Man Day
Story: In China, the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989 are known simply as June 4th, or 6-4, in much the way that 9-11 is more than enough information to evoke plenty of reaction in Americans. They actually extended quite a bit earlier than that, the demonstrations began as early as April 15th, and began as mourning for Hu Yaobang, an upper party member who pushed for reform, and was humiliated, to some extent scapegoated, and forced to resign earlier that year. This mourning party gradually turned more radical, testing the bounds of what the government would allow. Much is still not known about the protests today, and there has been plenty of suppression of information about them by the Chinese state. But it looks as if the protests had no real leadership, or indeed unified agenda. To some it was about freedom of speech or press, to some it was about democracy, to some it was opposing nepotism, to some it was dissatisfaction with Deng Xiaoping as the head of the central committee. It began with students and intellectuals, and indeed there were general strikes at the universities on April 21-23rd, but it spread to many kinds of urban workers. By late April there were similar protests in cities all throughout China, and in Taiwan and the US. By May 13th there were hunger strikes, and Mikhail Gorbachev was scheduled to visit. The protests were pretty much well ordered, huge, and allowed to continue in hopes they’d burn out. There were 100,000 people in the square protesting peacefully pretty much every day for a month and a half. On May 19th, the Premier Li Peng, and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang spoke to the crowd, pleading with the students to end their hunger strike, famously saying “we are already old, it doesn’t matter to us anymore” in contrast the students were young, and he urged them not to sacrifice themselves so easily. They applauded but they did not disperse. The next day, martial law was declared, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was stripped of all his positions and placed under house arrest. He was not seen publicly again for the rest of his life and died in 2005. But the military, claimed it was unable to get to Tienanmen square being blocked by throngs of protesters and still unwilling to fire first, and they gave up attempting to occupy the square on May 24th. Understand that at first, there was a lot of reporting of the event within China, and many sympathy protests, and indeed, many people traveled to the capitol to take part in the continuous protests. On May 27th, for example, Hong Kong had a huge gala concert “Democratic Songs Dedicated for China” in which many pop stars sang a free concert expressing sympathy with the protesters in Beijing, at the end of which was a huge parade attended by 1.5 million! people, one fourth of the population of Hong Kong walking peacefully through the streets chanting against the government. On May 30, the protesters erected a statue of “the Goddess of Democracy” carved specially for this purpose.
Eventually Li Peng, who had always favored military intervention, and was now no longer blocked by Zhao Ziyang, was able to bring in the 27th and 38th armies from the provinces to attempt to occupy the city, apparently believing that the local army unit was too sympathetic to the protesters and unwilling to fire on their friends and relatives. Then June 1st it turned ugly. The Beijingers flooded into the streets to block the army, as they had on May 20-24. They set up barricades, and blocked off streets with vehicles. The army came from all 4 directions, systematically taking control and establishing checkpoints of their own. The protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. Vehicles burned across the city, often with occupants in them. There are reports of soldiers and police being beaten to death, and burned to death. There was a lot of live media coverage that this point, and it shows soldiers firing into crowds with live ammo. It also shows tank commanders being pulled out of tanks and beaten to death by protesters. By all accounts the army systematically took the city block by block. By 1 AM June 5th the army had reached Tienanmen Square, and gave one last plea for amnesty, saying they had orders to secure the square by 6AM by whatever means necessary, and would rather let the students flee than kill them. At 4AM the student leader took a final vote. By 5:40AM June 5th the square was cleared of protesters for the first time in 50 days. You still hear conflicting accounts of exactly what happened that morning.
The story of tank man takes place that morning, the 5th of June. Many protesters had attempted to return to Tienanmen Square and were shot on the morning of June the 5th. But in the “tank man” incident takes place a little off of Tienanmen square and no bodies are visible. You’ve all seen the picture, maybe even several versions of it. A lone young man dress nice stands in front of a column of 4 Chinese tanks. He just stands there preventing them from going to Tienanmen Square. They try to go around him, and he moves to the side so they can’t. He holds a shopping bag in each had, and they are full of groceries. We do not know his name or fate. There are many conflicting stories even now. He was Wang Weilin, no he wasn’t. He was imprisoned for a time and then released, he was killed by firing squad, he was never caught.
The incident itself was seen by many and caught on camera by several. He stood there blocking the tanks, with his groceries in his hands. Unlike the last two times this had happened in the last two weeks, there were no throngs of people beside him blocking tanks. The battle was already lost that morning, he had to know that. There are many conflicting estimates on death counts, but clearly there were plenty and they had already happened and the army held the square. Preventing these tanks from reaching the nearby, already militarily occupied square accomplished nothing. Yet there he stood alone. Neither he nor the tank commander said anything to each other. The tank stops and shuts its engines. He climbs onto the tank and speaks into its ports. He has a short conversation with the gunner. He jumps off the tank. The hatch opens and the tank commander says something. The tanks engines restart, and the lone man hustles back in front of the tank. The stand-off continues. Eventually two pedestrians in blue come up and snatch him away. Secret police? Friends? Concerned citizens?
Four western reporters got versions of the incident in film, and successfully smuggled them out of China, in various ways. Several other versions were confiscated. Many of the photos have won awards. One of the iconic photos in in Life’s 2003 collection of 100 photos that changed the world. In the Western media he is usually called “tank man,” but as “unknown rebel” he made it only Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. In 2009 a new photo of him was discovered, taken from ground level it focus on two Chinese men running away terrified. But if you look carefully in the background you see a lone man in the middle of the road holding two shopping bags standing still, while a column of tanks are a hundred yards off approaching …
Tienanmen in 1989 is a complex story, with many angles, and spun as thoroughly in the West as it was spun by the Chinese. Once I thought “Tank Man” was a symbol of non-violent resistance of Tienanmen. He’s not, that happened earlier, for weeks, in crowds of hundreds of thousands, even millions. “Tank Man” is a late hit, after one story is over as the next story is beginning. He is the story of the day after non-violent resistance, when the battle is already lost. And he does it again. He serves as a symbol that not everything was lost. That even if the students flee the tanks in the depths of the night, the next morning in broad daylight the game of tank vs. civilian can go on again with the cameras watching. He reminds us that when great events are over, there is still spin, and the civilians can play the game of spin too.
Gratitude
I am grateful that there are still victories to be had after a sound defeat.
I am grateful that tank commanders often refuse to run over civilians.
I am grateful that civilians sometimes stand up to tank commanders.
I am grateful that someone unknown can capture the world’s imagination and hold it for years.
I am grateful that shopping bags can be weapons of pacifism.
I am grateful that 6-4-1989 cannot be forgotten in China no matter how much it’s memory is repressed.
Other Notables for me for today
Gen. Marshall calls for the Marshall Plan, whereby the victors of WWII will bankroll economically re-constructing Europe in an attempt to prevent another World War in a generation, 1947. Bose-Einstein condensate first created in a lab, 1995, Birth of Adam Smith (economist), Federico Garcia Lorca (poet). Bill Moyers (journalist), Laurie Anderson (performance artist), death of Dee Dee Ramone (musician)
Eventually Li Peng, who had always favored military intervention, and was now no longer blocked by Zhao Ziyang, was able to bring in the 27th and 38th armies from the provinces to attempt to occupy the city, apparently believing that the local army unit was too sympathetic to the protesters and unwilling to fire on their friends and relatives. Then June 1st it turned ugly. The Beijingers flooded into the streets to block the army, as they had on May 20-24. They set up barricades, and blocked off streets with vehicles. The army came from all 4 directions, systematically taking control and establishing checkpoints of their own. The protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. Vehicles burned across the city, often with occupants in them. There are reports of soldiers and police being beaten to death, and burned to death. There was a lot of live media coverage that this point, and it shows soldiers firing into crowds with live ammo. It also shows tank commanders being pulled out of tanks and beaten to death by protesters. By all accounts the army systematically took the city block by block. By 1 AM June 5th the army had reached Tienanmen Square, and gave one last plea for amnesty, saying they had orders to secure the square by 6AM by whatever means necessary, and would rather let the students flee than kill them. At 4AM the student leader took a final vote. By 5:40AM June 5th the square was cleared of protesters for the first time in 50 days. You still hear conflicting accounts of exactly what happened that morning.
The story of tank man takes place that morning, the 5th of June. Many protesters had attempted to return to Tienanmen Square and were shot on the morning of June the 5th. But in the “tank man” incident takes place a little off of Tienanmen square and no bodies are visible. You’ve all seen the picture, maybe even several versions of it. A lone young man dress nice stands in front of a column of 4 Chinese tanks. He just stands there preventing them from going to Tienanmen Square. They try to go around him, and he moves to the side so they can’t. He holds a shopping bag in each had, and they are full of groceries. We do not know his name or fate. There are many conflicting stories even now. He was Wang Weilin, no he wasn’t. He was imprisoned for a time and then released, he was killed by firing squad, he was never caught.
The incident itself was seen by many and caught on camera by several. He stood there blocking the tanks, with his groceries in his hands. Unlike the last two times this had happened in the last two weeks, there were no throngs of people beside him blocking tanks. The battle was already lost that morning, he had to know that. There are many conflicting estimates on death counts, but clearly there were plenty and they had already happened and the army held the square. Preventing these tanks from reaching the nearby, already militarily occupied square accomplished nothing. Yet there he stood alone. Neither he nor the tank commander said anything to each other. The tank stops and shuts its engines. He climbs onto the tank and speaks into its ports. He has a short conversation with the gunner. He jumps off the tank. The hatch opens and the tank commander says something. The tanks engines restart, and the lone man hustles back in front of the tank. The stand-off continues. Eventually two pedestrians in blue come up and snatch him away. Secret police? Friends? Concerned citizens?
Four western reporters got versions of the incident in film, and successfully smuggled them out of China, in various ways. Several other versions were confiscated. Many of the photos have won awards. One of the iconic photos in in Life’s 2003 collection of 100 photos that changed the world. In the Western media he is usually called “tank man,” but as “unknown rebel” he made it only Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. In 2009 a new photo of him was discovered, taken from ground level it focus on two Chinese men running away terrified. But if you look carefully in the background you see a lone man in the middle of the road holding two shopping bags standing still, while a column of tanks are a hundred yards off approaching …
Tienanmen in 1989 is a complex story, with many angles, and spun as thoroughly in the West as it was spun by the Chinese. Once I thought “Tank Man” was a symbol of non-violent resistance of Tienanmen. He’s not, that happened earlier, for weeks, in crowds of hundreds of thousands, even millions. “Tank Man” is a late hit, after one story is over as the next story is beginning. He is the story of the day after non-violent resistance, when the battle is already lost. And he does it again. He serves as a symbol that not everything was lost. That even if the students flee the tanks in the depths of the night, the next morning in broad daylight the game of tank vs. civilian can go on again with the cameras watching. He reminds us that when great events are over, there is still spin, and the civilians can play the game of spin too.
Gratitude
I am grateful that there are still victories to be had after a sound defeat.
I am grateful that tank commanders often refuse to run over civilians.
I am grateful that civilians sometimes stand up to tank commanders.
I am grateful that someone unknown can capture the world’s imagination and hold it for years.
I am grateful that shopping bags can be weapons of pacifism.
I am grateful that 6-4-1989 cannot be forgotten in China no matter how much it’s memory is repressed.
Other Notables for me for today
Gen. Marshall calls for the Marshall Plan, whereby the victors of WWII will bankroll economically re-constructing Europe in an attempt to prevent another World War in a generation, 1947. Bose-Einstein condensate first created in a lab, 1995, Birth of Adam Smith (economist), Federico Garcia Lorca (poet). Bill Moyers (journalist), Laurie Anderson (performance artist), death of Dee Dee Ramone (musician)
Friday, June 4, 2010
June 4th – Saint Gustav Schroeder Day
Story: Saint Gustav Schroeder was born in 1885 and died in 1959. Much has been written about the central story of his life, but I’ve had troubles finding more information about his early and late years. Gustav was a German who, at age 17, he went to sea and became a sailor. Over the next 37 years he worked his way up the ranks, becoming eventually the captain of a luxury ocean liner stationed out of Hamburg, the MV St. Louis. Now 1939 was not a good year for the German luxury tourism industry. However, Kristallnacht had occurred 6 months earlier and many of the few Jews left in Germany were desperate to escape. They had mostly lost their jobs, and been subjected to additional rents, so they were nearly out of money. But a group of Jews cooked up the idea of spending the last of their money on a cruise ticket to the Caribbean and just STAYING in Cuba or Jamaica or the US, rather than coming back to Germany.
On May 13, 1939 the MV St. Louis sailed out of Hamburg bound for Cuba, carrying a crew of 231, 930 Jewish refugees hoping to escape Germany, 6 non-Jewish refugees hoping to flee, and apparently 1 genuine tourist. Most had sold everything they owned for the cruise tickets. Several of the Jews had come out of hiding for the first time in months to board the ship. Its story was made into a book entitled Voyage of the Damned, and in 1976 into an academy award winning movie entitled the Voyage of the Damned. Now right at the beginning it was clear that this trip was not full of high-tipping rich folk, and of course, the Jews had been pretty effectively demonized in Germany by then. The crew was surly towards the Jews, and the Nazi flag flew on the ship, and Hilter’s portrait dominated the social hall. In the first few days, Schroeder, who was non-Jewish and staunchly anti-Nazi even before this story, called a meeting of the whole staff, emphasizing that the Jews were paying guests, and were to be treated with the same respect due any other paying guest or he would come down like a hammer. One thing that dominated the early part of the voyage was passing around the story of Aaron Pozner. Aaron Pozner had been released from Dachau two weeks earlier for reasons that are still unclear with the condition that if he did not leave the country immediately he would be killed. But he had seen the inside of the concentration camps first hand, and he wanted everyone to know what awaited them if they were not able to escape.
The trip to Cuba was in many ways relaxing, good food, movies, a pool, it was a luxury liner after all, and there was no immediate trouble. The one of the elderly passengers whose health was already failing died. His wife wanted him buried in Cuba, but the ship had no facilities to keep the body that long, so Capt. Schroeder pushed for a burial at sea. He found a Rabbi, on board and kloodged together the best compromise ritual he could between a traditional Jewish burial, and a traditional burial at sea. One of his underlings, who Schroeder knew was a Secret Service plant, insisted that Party regulations required a burial at sea to be draped in the Swastika flag, and Captain Schroeder’s first act of treason was to refuse this and to allow the Jew to be buried without the Swastika flag.
When the ship arrived in Cuba, they found that Cuban immigration law had been changed in early 1939, to prevent just what was now occurring. Tourists were still allowed and encouraged and required no visas, but “refugees” required a visa, and a significant monetary bond “to insure that they did not become wards of the state.” Further, the precise rules had changed since Jan, so most of the Jews thought they had already paid the required fee to the required person, when they got their tickets, but now found that if they wanted to get off at Cuba it would be another large fee, which almost none of them had the money for. There was much bureaucracy and negotiation, the ship sat in harbor accomplishing nothing. The crew and passengers all became distrustful of the captain. The passengers became fearful that there were SS and Gestapo had spies on board the ship watching, as indeed there were. One man slit his wrists and jumped overboard. But the Cuban police got him, sent him to the hospital, and eventually brought him back to the ship. Cuban boats patrolled the side of the ship to insure no one snuck out. The passengers began debating the merits of a suicide rather than being returned to the concentration camps. The captain set up “suicide patrols” to patrol the ship at night looking for people attempting suicide (and the beginnings of mutiny plans). In the end, the Cuban navy threatened to open fire if the MV St. Louis didn’t leave the harbor, and it left with only 23 of the 936 hopefuls having managed to disembark at Cuba. As they left Havana harbor it was full of rented boats with family of the Jews who had arrived in Cuba or America in earlier months shouting their farewells, expecting never to see their loved ones alive again.
So Schroeder took the ship to Florida, which was close, figuring that Roosevelt had been talking a lot about opposing the Nazis and rescuing the Jews from Germany. We actually have now records of Roosevelt’s cabinet discussing what to do about the MV St. Louis and its cargo full of desperate Jews. They really hoped Cuba would take them, because when push came to shove Roosevelt was not willing to bend the immigration quota laws that had just been passed to allow the Jews entry. The boat milled around the edge of international waters in Florida for some time, making regular radio pleas and hoping for a change of policy, but none of the fleeing Jews from this ship were allowed to enter the US.
At this point the Hapag cruise line ordered Schroeder to start heading back to Germany, and to make some haste. Their company said, this was because of supply issues, and the ship was running low on food and water, but there was also real worry that war was going to break out soon. But here Captain Schroeder made his next heroic act. He vowed, but not yet publicly, that none of this Jews were going back to Germany, and that he would not return until he’d found safe places for each of his passengers. So he headed back and started up back-room negotiations with Britain. During the Atlantic crossing, a group of Jewish youths conducted a mutiny, and succeeded in capturing the bridge, but not the engine room, and Captain Schroeder and his crew were able to re-establish control. At this point it is clear that Captain Schroeder is personally leading the negotiation to find places for his passengers. As they cross the Atlantic, Britain does not budge, and the Captain and his upper officers form a desperate plan. They are going to run their ocean liner aground on British soil and force the issue. They planned out exactly how they were going to do it. However, before the day came, there was a diplomatic breakthrough. Britain wouldn’t take all the Jews, but if a few other countries would agree to share the immigrants they would probably be willing to take in some of them as a well-timed public relations gesture. France, Belgium and the Netherlands quickly agreed to those terms too, and the remaining 913 refugees were split up roughly 4 ways and deposited each in Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. By June 20th the ship was basically empty and on its way home.
Sept 1st, 1939 a few months later saw war break out. Many of the Jews from the "Voyage of the Damned" were in France, Belgium or Netherlands, when those countries were overrun by the Germans. Records show that 275 of the passengers of the MV St. Louis died in concentration camps after all. The MV St. Louis and Captain Schroeder were at sea when war broke out. Schroeder ran the loose and hastily erected Arctic Blockade to reach Murmansk an (at that time) neutral port for resupplies. Then he successfully ran the much tighter Helgoland blockade to take the ship and crew home to Hamburg. Schroeder, however, refused to join the German military navy. He spent WWII in poverty. He tried to become a writer with little success. After the war, he was brought up on war crime charges during the de-nazification trials. However, several of the Jews he had saved spoke out at his trial and he was acquitted on all counts. His last decade or so, he was supported almost entirely financially by gifts from the Jews he had saved, and he died in 1958. In 1993 the state of Israel proclaimed him among “the righteous of the Nations” Gentiles who repeatedly risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust with no plan of reward.
Gratitude
I am grateful for normal folk who become heroes when the situation demands.
I am grateful for systems to provide basic assistance for refugees fleeing war or political violence.
I am grateful for intercontinental communications.
I am grateful that the evils of Nazism were exposed, reviled and defeated.
Other Notables for today
June 4th is the day most associated with the Tienanmen square struggles of 1989 in China. It is the date of the first hot air balloon ride by the Montgolfier brothers of France. It was the date of the first Pulitzer prizes, and the first minimum wage law in the US (in Massachusetts). It was when the 19th amendment granting womens suffrage passed Congress.
On May 13, 1939 the MV St. Louis sailed out of Hamburg bound for Cuba, carrying a crew of 231, 930 Jewish refugees hoping to escape Germany, 6 non-Jewish refugees hoping to flee, and apparently 1 genuine tourist. Most had sold everything they owned for the cruise tickets. Several of the Jews had come out of hiding for the first time in months to board the ship. Its story was made into a book entitled Voyage of the Damned, and in 1976 into an academy award winning movie entitled the Voyage of the Damned. Now right at the beginning it was clear that this trip was not full of high-tipping rich folk, and of course, the Jews had been pretty effectively demonized in Germany by then. The crew was surly towards the Jews, and the Nazi flag flew on the ship, and Hilter’s portrait dominated the social hall. In the first few days, Schroeder, who was non-Jewish and staunchly anti-Nazi even before this story, called a meeting of the whole staff, emphasizing that the Jews were paying guests, and were to be treated with the same respect due any other paying guest or he would come down like a hammer. One thing that dominated the early part of the voyage was passing around the story of Aaron Pozner. Aaron Pozner had been released from Dachau two weeks earlier for reasons that are still unclear with the condition that if he did not leave the country immediately he would be killed. But he had seen the inside of the concentration camps first hand, and he wanted everyone to know what awaited them if they were not able to escape.
The trip to Cuba was in many ways relaxing, good food, movies, a pool, it was a luxury liner after all, and there was no immediate trouble. The one of the elderly passengers whose health was already failing died. His wife wanted him buried in Cuba, but the ship had no facilities to keep the body that long, so Capt. Schroeder pushed for a burial at sea. He found a Rabbi, on board and kloodged together the best compromise ritual he could between a traditional Jewish burial, and a traditional burial at sea. One of his underlings, who Schroeder knew was a Secret Service plant, insisted that Party regulations required a burial at sea to be draped in the Swastika flag, and Captain Schroeder’s first act of treason was to refuse this and to allow the Jew to be buried without the Swastika flag.
When the ship arrived in Cuba, they found that Cuban immigration law had been changed in early 1939, to prevent just what was now occurring. Tourists were still allowed and encouraged and required no visas, but “refugees” required a visa, and a significant monetary bond “to insure that they did not become wards of the state.” Further, the precise rules had changed since Jan, so most of the Jews thought they had already paid the required fee to the required person, when they got their tickets, but now found that if they wanted to get off at Cuba it would be another large fee, which almost none of them had the money for. There was much bureaucracy and negotiation, the ship sat in harbor accomplishing nothing. The crew and passengers all became distrustful of the captain. The passengers became fearful that there were SS and Gestapo had spies on board the ship watching, as indeed there were. One man slit his wrists and jumped overboard. But the Cuban police got him, sent him to the hospital, and eventually brought him back to the ship. Cuban boats patrolled the side of the ship to insure no one snuck out. The passengers began debating the merits of a suicide rather than being returned to the concentration camps. The captain set up “suicide patrols” to patrol the ship at night looking for people attempting suicide (and the beginnings of mutiny plans). In the end, the Cuban navy threatened to open fire if the MV St. Louis didn’t leave the harbor, and it left with only 23 of the 936 hopefuls having managed to disembark at Cuba. As they left Havana harbor it was full of rented boats with family of the Jews who had arrived in Cuba or America in earlier months shouting their farewells, expecting never to see their loved ones alive again.
So Schroeder took the ship to Florida, which was close, figuring that Roosevelt had been talking a lot about opposing the Nazis and rescuing the Jews from Germany. We actually have now records of Roosevelt’s cabinet discussing what to do about the MV St. Louis and its cargo full of desperate Jews. They really hoped Cuba would take them, because when push came to shove Roosevelt was not willing to bend the immigration quota laws that had just been passed to allow the Jews entry. The boat milled around the edge of international waters in Florida for some time, making regular radio pleas and hoping for a change of policy, but none of the fleeing Jews from this ship were allowed to enter the US.
At this point the Hapag cruise line ordered Schroeder to start heading back to Germany, and to make some haste. Their company said, this was because of supply issues, and the ship was running low on food and water, but there was also real worry that war was going to break out soon. But here Captain Schroeder made his next heroic act. He vowed, but not yet publicly, that none of this Jews were going back to Germany, and that he would not return until he’d found safe places for each of his passengers. So he headed back and started up back-room negotiations with Britain. During the Atlantic crossing, a group of Jewish youths conducted a mutiny, and succeeded in capturing the bridge, but not the engine room, and Captain Schroeder and his crew were able to re-establish control. At this point it is clear that Captain Schroeder is personally leading the negotiation to find places for his passengers. As they cross the Atlantic, Britain does not budge, and the Captain and his upper officers form a desperate plan. They are going to run their ocean liner aground on British soil and force the issue. They planned out exactly how they were going to do it. However, before the day came, there was a diplomatic breakthrough. Britain wouldn’t take all the Jews, but if a few other countries would agree to share the immigrants they would probably be willing to take in some of them as a well-timed public relations gesture. France, Belgium and the Netherlands quickly agreed to those terms too, and the remaining 913 refugees were split up roughly 4 ways and deposited each in Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. By June 20th the ship was basically empty and on its way home.
Sept 1st, 1939 a few months later saw war break out. Many of the Jews from the "Voyage of the Damned" were in France, Belgium or Netherlands, when those countries were overrun by the Germans. Records show that 275 of the passengers of the MV St. Louis died in concentration camps after all. The MV St. Louis and Captain Schroeder were at sea when war broke out. Schroeder ran the loose and hastily erected Arctic Blockade to reach Murmansk an (at that time) neutral port for resupplies. Then he successfully ran the much tighter Helgoland blockade to take the ship and crew home to Hamburg. Schroeder, however, refused to join the German military navy. He spent WWII in poverty. He tried to become a writer with little success. After the war, he was brought up on war crime charges during the de-nazification trials. However, several of the Jews he had saved spoke out at his trial and he was acquitted on all counts. His last decade or so, he was supported almost entirely financially by gifts from the Jews he had saved, and he died in 1958. In 1993 the state of Israel proclaimed him among “the righteous of the Nations” Gentiles who repeatedly risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust with no plan of reward.
Gratitude
I am grateful for normal folk who become heroes when the situation demands.
I am grateful for systems to provide basic assistance for refugees fleeing war or political violence.
I am grateful for intercontinental communications.
I am grateful that the evils of Nazism were exposed, reviled and defeated.
Other Notables for today
June 4th is the day most associated with the Tienanmen square struggles of 1989 in China. It is the date of the first hot air balloon ride by the Montgolfier brothers of France. It was the date of the first Pulitzer prizes, and the first minimum wage law in the US (in Massachusetts). It was when the 19th amendment granting womens suffrage passed Congress.
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