Die Ungewollten - Die Irrfahrt der St. Louis (2019)

In May 1939, the cruise ship MS St. Louis sets sail from Hamburg on a special voyage bound for Havana. On board are 937 Jewish passengers who have bought tourist visas for Cuba and hope to flee Germany. Captain Gustav Schröder is firmly determined to help them. He is opposed by the steward Hinrich, who is the onboard leader of a local Nazi Party group, as well as by Gestapo agents on board. After Cuba’s president, Brú, declares the visas invalid—having been sold for the tourism minister Benitez’s personal profit—Schröder learns from Tinga, the local HAPAG agent, that the shipping company had anticipated the refusals because German propaganda wanted to show that Jews were unwelcome in other countries too. Schröder manages to get some of the Jews allowed ashore, but then the St. Louis has to leave Cuba and heads for Miami. Petitions to U.S. President Roosevelt are unsuccessful, however. It is suggested that admitting the passengers to the United States would be inappropriate, given the country’s 12 million unemployed. Fearing they will have to return to Germany, some passengers attempt suicide, and a plan is made to take control of the ship. But the level-headed captain talks the passengers out of a mutiny. Schröder’s attempt to fake an emergency at sea and thereby force the passengers’ landing also fails. Finally, Canada refuses to let the St. Louis dock, so the ship must return to Europe. Schröder will not allow the worst to happen: sailing to Cuxhaven as ordered, where the Gestapo is to take the passengers aboard a ship outside the three-mile limit and distribute them among concentration camps. Just under a month after leaving Hamburg harbor, the St. Louis arrives in Antwerp. Four countries have agreed to take in the 907 passengers still on board, who are divided among Belgium (214), the Netherlands (181), France (224), and Great Britain (288). Thus, two-thirds of the passengers survive, while a third are murdered by the Nazis in the following years. Among other things, the film ends with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apology in 2018 for refusing to admit the passengers.