"Voyage of the Damned" American line SS St. Louis. Razor by Said Shaheen & Bros

[Traskrom]

Voyage of the Damned

"In April 1939, Germany's Hamburg-America Line announced a special voyage to Havana on the luxury liner St. Louis, departing May 13. The 937 tickets were quickly sold out, with more than 900 of them purchased by Jews. Most had purchased landing permits for Cuba, where they hoped to wait for the United States to call their quota number. Unknown to them, their landing permits, issued by the corrupt Cuban director of immigration, had already been invalidated by the Cuban government.

The St. Louis arrived in Havana harbor on May 27, but Cuban officials denied entry to all but 28 passengers. For a week, while the ship sat at anchor in sweltering heat, representatives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) negotiated with Cuban president Federico Laredo Brú. The Cuban government rejected the JDC's proposals and forced the ship to leave the harbor.

The ship's captain, Gustav Schröder, piloted the St. Louis to the Florida coast in hopes that the U.S. would accept the passengers or that Brú would reverse his decision. The State Department, however, refused to intervene in Cuban affairs, and the Coast Guard denied the ship entrance into American waters. The St. Louis turned back to Europe.

Fearful of returning to Germany, the passengers pleaded with world leaders to offer them refuge. Through the efforts of the JDC and other agencies, the governments of France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Belgium granted the refugees temporary haven. After being at sea for over a month, the St. Louis docked in Antwerp on June 17, 1939."
from here - The Voyage of the St. Louis


MS St. Louis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis

[Mvcrash]

Interesting Razor, thanks for posting the history.

[Obie]

Hello, Traskrom:

Thank you for that fascinating bit of history. No wonder there is something intriguing about the razor.

Regards,
Obie

[Catrentshaving]

Nice razor and great piece of history to go along with it. Thanks for sharing it

[linerguy]

First, I am not a Straight Razor collector; to be honest, I am an ocean liner buff and author. I stumbled on to this thread while doing research.

As lovely as the razor with the image of the s.s. St. Louis on it is, it is not the St. Louis that carried the unfortunate refugees to Cuba and back...that St. Louis belonged to the "Hamburg" America Line, not the American Line.

Fortunately, what you have is, at least within the circle of ocean liner geeks (myself included!), far more historically important....and rare.

The ship so beautifully etched on the blade was built in Philadelphia in 1894 (launched by Grover Cleveland's wife), served in the Spanish-American War as well as World War I (renamed u.s.s. Louisville) and was suppose to return to transatlantic service in 1920. Unfortunately, she caught fire during the refit and was lost. She was scrapped in Italy in 1924.

I apologize if I've stuck my nose in where it usually wouldn't belong; but I've always felt that the truth should always triumph. Besides, you've got nothing to feel bad about: the razor is a hundred times more rare than if it had come from the German St. Louis.

Thanks!

Russ Willoughby

[AntiqueHoosier]

Great info Russ! A super nice historical find!!! Love it!

[commiecat]

First, I am not a Straight Razor collector; to be honest, I am an ocean liner buff and author. I stumbled on to this thread while doing research.

We collect to use, though.

Some really neat information and thanks for sharing -- have you ever been interested at all in shaving as gentlemen did aboard that S.S. St. Louis? I suspect that traditional wet shaving would compliment historical ocean liners and authorship quite well!

[StubbleBuster]

I appreciate the history behind this razor - I did not know the story until now. About two years ago I purchased a razor just like this one, I believe it is a good one. But I never knew the story. Wow!

[linerguy]

Glad I could be of some assistance.

And to answer commiecat's question: no, I've never been interested; just thought I would chime in to set the record straight.

I do, however, appreciate people's various interests and am always in awe of the different things that folks are into.

'cept for the guy who collected postcards with pictures of brooms on them...that was just plain weird!

Kind regards,

-Russ

[Traskrom]

As lovely as the razor with the image of the s.s. St. Louis on it is, it is not the St. Louis that carried the unfortunate refugees to Cuba and back...that St. Louis belonged to the "Hamburg" America Line, not the American Line.

Thanks for the info!

I keep repeating to myself - don't trust an internet