The exile

The colonial mirages

After the failure of the Evian conference, Western countries, the Evian Committee and Jewish organizations are trying among other solutions to find reception areas in their colonial territories. (Tanganyika and Guyana for the English, Madagascar and New Caledonia for the French). The Evian Committee also turns to South American countries. President Roosevelt intervenes with Portuguese Angola. While commissions continue to study these files, the outbreak of war puts an end to all these speculations.

Shanghai

Until October 1939, Shanghai was the only asylum land not to restrict immigration. 14,000 refugees mostly from Germany settle there before the war. Their number reached 17,000 in 1941 and included a large majority of Jews.
Helped by the small Jewish community of Shanghai and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, life is organized within five refugee camps. A number of these newcomers manage to create businesses and trades in a European style. A religious, cultural and political life including a German-speaking press, radio and theatrical productions quickly emerged. In February 1943, the evolution of the war in the Pacific upsets the fate of these refugees who are all interned within a ghetto by the Japanese occupying power. As soon as the war ended, they were repatriated to Europe, while a large number of them decided to settle in Palestine.

The children of the Guette

After the violence of the "Crystal Night", a group of children – entrusted by their family to a committee chaired by the Baroness Germaine de Rothschild – manages to leave Nazi Germany in March-April 1939.
These one hundred thirty children aged nine to fourteen, from Vienna, Berlin and the Palatinate are housed at the Château de La Guette in Villeneuve-Saint-Denis, in Seine-et-Marne, owned by the Rothschilds.
With the beginning of the war, the team of educators broke up and the oldest among the children are distributed to boarding schools in the region. The German military victory forces the hundred or so children remaining at the castle to take refuge in La Bourboule, near Clermont-Ferrand, in a hotel rented by the Rothschilds. At the end of 1941, faced with many difficulties, the work of La Guette was dissolved and integrated into the OSE (Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants). Germaine and Edouard de Rothschild manage to have some children emigrate to the United States. In 1942, the OSE tries to distribute children among individuals, in Catholic or professional schools. Some are taken to Switzerland by a network created by the OSE and Georges Garel, but some children are sent back to France by Swiss customs officers while roundups are increasing in the southern zone. Of the 130 children, 10 were arrested and deported from France. Among them, only one survived.

Le Saint-Louis

On May 13, 1939, in Hamburg, 937 passengers including 931 emigrants embark for Cuba aboard the Saint-Louis. The vessel’s owner, the Hamburg-Amerika-Linija, had provided them with landing certificates which she herself had bought from intermediaries of the Director-General of the Cuban Immigration Services. At the dawn of May 27, the Saint-Louis wakes up in the port of Havana, but the passengers are prohibited from disembarking, their visa having been fraudulently sold by the director of Cuban customs. Only 29 passengers will disembark in Havana.
Despite the interventions of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the German chargé d'affaires posted in Cuba, the boat is forced to set sail for Hamburg on June 2.
The captain of the Saint-Louis lingers, however, off the coast of Florida, hoping to disembark 743 passengers, out of the 907 remaining on board, who had already applied for visas for the United States. But the government in Washington refuses to let them enter, claiming that each candidate must wait patiently for their turn. The boat is surrounded by the coastguards and must continue on its way.
In mid-June the Saint-Louis set sail for Europe and reached Antwerp on June 17. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee who ensures the financial support of the passengers, manages to bring these refugees into different countries, 181 in the Netherlands, 214 in Belgium, 224 in France and 288 in the United Kingdom.

Projects for Jewish colonies. The Institute of Jewish Affairs. Vol.1 n 4. New York, United States, November 1941
Collection: Shoah Memorial/CDJC.

Jewish students on a street in Shanghai. Shanghai, China, 1941.
Cr said photographic: Shoah Memorial/CDJC.

The destruction of my uncle’s store after November 10, 1938. Drawing by one of the children of Château de la Guette. France, 1939.
Collection: Shoah Memorial/CDJC/La Guette fonds.

The Saint-Louis, at sea, transports German Jewish refugees to Cuba. 1939.
Cr said photographic: Shoah Memorial/CDJC.