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Jewish Journal

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Turned away in 1939: The voyage of the MS St. Louis

Hans Fisher vividly remembers his excitement on May 27, 1939, the day the MS St. Louis and its 937 refugees, most of them German Jews, reached Havana’s harbor in Cuba two weeks after leaving Hamburg, Germany.
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Picture of Jared Sichel

Jared Sichel

June 4, 2015

Hans Fisher vividly remembers his excitement on May 27, 1939, the day the MS St. Louis and its 937 refugees, most of them German Jews, reached Havana’s harbor in Cuba two weeks after leaving Hamburg, Germany.

“On that day, we got up early, all our luggage was packed. We put it in front of the cabin door, and the porters took it upstairs on deck, and then we all went on deck,” said Fisher, who was 11 at the time and traveling with his mother and younger sister.

[Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims:

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