(here is a real life story about Jews fleeing Germany)

A Righteous Man Among Nations: Captain Gustav Schroder:

Seventy survivors of the M.S. St. Louis voyage from Germany to Cuba in 1939 are meeting in Miami Beach according the the Herald.

The Statue of Liberty bears an inscription stating, inter alia, (Judges, click here for a definition of "inter alia") "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

Yup, in 1939 almost everyone got into the US, except if you're a Jew on a boat fleeing Germany. Then, despite holding a valid visa for Cuba, you get turned away. The US refuses to accept you, and so does Canada. Eventually about 223 are accepted by England, and the rest returned to Europe- mostly Belgium and France, which is fine except both countries are about to fall to a German blitzkrieg. Eventually, of the 930 Jews seeking to escape Germany, 254 were captured and taken to the camps and executed along with the other ten million humans the Germans saw fit to exterminate.

The story of the M.S. St. Louis is a story of a homeless and unwanted people, abandoned by the world, a small microcosm of a fate about to befall more than six million other Jews. It is also the heroic story of one German man- Captain Gustav Schroder, who had refused to join the nazi party; had insisted that his crew treat his passengers with respect, and who refused to return his ship to any German port until all of his passengers had been accepted by other countries and were-he thought- safely away from the maw of the holocaust.

Captain Gustav was awarded the extremely prestigious "Righteous Men Among Nations" award by Israel for his actions as Captain of the St. Louis.

And so Captain Gustav bears the title Righteous Man, while President Franklin Roosevelt among others, sat by while those poor souls criss-crossed the Atlantic fearing only their heritage and religion and the persecution it brought upon them.
(note: this item is from the RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG-

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