Carmelina was 20 years old when the M.S. St. Louis, a German ocean liner of the Hamburg-America Line, sailed in 1939 from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba with 937 passengers. Most were Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany during the build-up to World War II. Upon arrival in Cuba immigration authorities did not allow them to disembark even though they had obtained Cuban visas in Germany.
In this episode Carmelina recalls how she witnessed the tragic situation of the passengers as they waited desperately for a week aboard ship to get permission to disembark. Cuban authorities allowed only 28 passengers to stay in Cuba while they waited for their visas to enter the United States. The rest sailed aimlessly while the captain tried to dock in Florida, but the United States, and then Canada, denied them entry and the ship had to sail back to Europe. Many were allowed to disembark in other European countries but those countries were occupied by the Nazi and many of the passengers died in concentration camps.These episodes of the early years spent in the Colonia, watching the harvest hustle and bustle and her sister Elena’s birth, left vivid memories in Carmelina.
The Manrara Family History Video and Web Platform is based on Carmelina’s recollections, the matriarch of the Manrara Gastón family.