Turned away from Cuba, the United States and Canada, more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard the ship St. Louis were finally and tragically returned to World War II Europe, where many died in Nazi death camps.
Barred in three lands, desperate German Jews attempted suicide rather than return to the land of their birth. Prepared to flee their homeland — particularly after the destruction of thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues and the incarceration of 30,000 Jewish men in concentration camps following Kristillnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass — hundreds of thousands of Jews were trapped when potential host countries would not open their doors.