What Happened To America During 1929-1939

The date is May 15,1939, 937 passengers are boarding a German transatlantic liner, the St.Louis leaving Hamburg, Germany heading to Havana, Cuba. But who are these passengers and why are they leaving? These 937 passengers are Jewish refugees fleeing for their life against the Third Reich, most being German “citizens” and Eastern European, ranging in age from children to seniors. But why Havana? Many of the passengers had applied for American visas, and were planning to stay for a short time in Cuba until they could go to America. Ultimately the refugees never were allowed in any country the liner sailed to, resulting in the ship returning back to Europe.

Upon arrival in Havana on the 30th of May, the passengers of the liner were refused entry
Appropriately 30% of the population was unemployed and one in five people relying heavily on government relief. This created a vast amount of poverty, hunger, and anger throughout the country. This resulted in many protesting the working and living conditions at the time, for example relief camps were set up to help combat hunger and unemployment. The men in these relief camps worked strenuous 44 hour weeks chopping trees, and were paid only 20 cents a day. This made made many people furious resulting in mass protest, most famously the On-to-Ottawa trek, were thousands of men boarded freight trains from rural western Canada to protest the horrible work and living conditions in Ottawa. If we can’t fix the unemployment in our own country with our own men, what good would refugees bring to this country? And this was the mentality at the time if we bring people from outside countries we are just taking away opportunities from people in our own nation. The jews did not know anything about agriculture and growing food, didn’t speak the same language, were seen as very close knit people who segregated themselves from society, and many enemy aliens(). These jews would create a burden on Canada if they were brought, providing no benefit for Canada or it’s people(). At the time the prime minister thought the St.louis was not a Canadian problem, but decided to further consult the director of immigration Frederick Blair. King was “emphatically opposed” to the entering of the passengers but Blair had a stronger opinion on the admission of the jews, saying Canada has already done too much for the jews, and “Why should Canada go out of its way, to allow in in people who would likely smuggle themselves across the border”. Blair also believed ship loads would follow with many more jews, “no country could open its doors wide enough to take in the