Unwanted: The Voyage of the St. Louis
Far away from where a young man sits in despair on a doomed ship, you recline in a comfortable office chair behind your desk, half-listening to a small man with a sad face go on and on about being a hero. You know of the ship that sits outside of Havana due, in no small part, to the media stir it's been making.
"And you, sir, have the power to save them," Berenson goes on, "Over nine hundred lives! More than half of them women and children, and all of them in need of your help, please, we could -"
You silence the man with a glance. You reassure the lawyer that you know the predicament that the Jews are in, and remind him that it does not change your position on the matter. The visas that they carried had been annulled a few days before they left. It was bureaucracy, not you, that was dooming these souls.
What good would admitting hundreds of starving Jews do for your country? Cuba's economy was failing and jobs were scarce as it was. You have a duty to think of your own people first. You know that Cuba and her people would suffer for this act if you were to accept the refugees.
After you say all this to Berenson, he hangs his head in defeat, the fight draining from his voice and pooling on the floor.
He thanks you for your time and gets up to go.
In a sudden, uncomfortable flash, you feel the weight of your choice fall on your shoulders. It is the weight of nine hundred dead bodies, the cold eyes of nine hundred ghosts.
"And you, sir, have the power to save them," Berenson goes on, "Over nine hundred lives! More than half of them women and children, and all of them in need of your help, please, we could -"
You silence the man with a glance. You reassure the lawyer that you know the predicament that the Jews are in, and remind him that it does not change your position on the matter. The visas that they carried had been annulled a few days before they left. It was bureaucracy, not you, that was dooming these souls.
What good would admitting hundreds of starving Jews do for your country? Cuba's economy was failing and jobs were scarce as it was. You have a duty to think of your own people first. You know that Cuba and her people would suffer for this act if you were to accept the refugees.
After you say all this to Berenson, he hangs his head in defeat, the fight draining from his voice and pooling on the floor.
He thanks you for your time and gets up to go.
In a sudden, uncomfortable flash, you feel the weight of your choice fall on your shoulders. It is the weight of nine hundred dead bodies, the cold eyes of nine hundred ghosts.