MovieChat Forums > Voyage of the Damned (1976) Discussion > (Spoilers) Lots of liberties taken in th...

(Spoilers) Lots of liberties taken in this film.

posted 16 years ago by f-ascaso
7 replies | jump to latest

This movie took some BIG liberties with the numbers and stories. The real story is just as compelling and interesting, there was really no need to play with the facts the way they did.

Nobody committed suicide on board, two people did attempt suicide.

29 passengers (one non-Jew) got off in Cuba, not just the 2 shown in the film.

Scholars say of the 906 passengers who disembarked in Europe, 700 lived to see the end of the war. Many surviving against the odds in concentration camps and forced labor camps.

The remaining 206 sadly didn't live to see the end of the war. In a sad irony for some of them, they were put into internment camps by their host countries because they were Germans and considered "enemy aliens", no distinction was made because they were Jews or refugees. Those that couldn't get emigration permission were taken by the Nazi's when they invaded.

The ship was not lost during the war, it was damaged by bombing but was repaired and in service until it was scrapped in 1952.

[–] atthen 15 years ago

At the time the movie was made in 1976 an extensive search of survivors had not been conducted. It was another 20 years before it was better known what happened to the passengers of the St. Louis.

Of course the movie took dramatic license and is unable to tell it all but at the time some of the number may have been what they believed to be true.

Final estimates as of 1996.

Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France.

[–] badnomad 15 years ago

Yet if the USA allowed the ship to dock, no one would have died at the hands of the Nazi's.

[–] cad8080 12 years ago

Or Cuba...who refused them entry first. Or Canada...

[–] dogshowaddict 9 years ago

I can't really blame Cuba THAT much. It was a lesser developed nation, a lot of the corruptive influences came from the privileged classes of other Western nations who were there, preying on the system. When Cuba detected that the permits to disembark from the St. Louis were forged, I'll bet that they were quite confused and simply didn't have a policy in place to handle a situation like that. And the powerful Cubans who didn't appear for work when needed? Orson Welles was NOT joking when it came to "manana." Take it from one who lived in South Texas from 1960 to 1994.

[–] chrissso 7 years ago

Please look into the history ... immigration quotas from Germany had been filled for the year and if FDR pushed it could have jeopardized his re-election. At the time the country was very isolationist ... more so WW2 had not even broke out and Pearl Harbor was more than two years away.

[–] chrissso 7 years ago

So when you think about it these are not big liberties and the story is in fact pretty accurate.

[–] Adam60z (3749) 4 years ago

I'm rewatching it now on HBO MAX. Saw it as a kid on TV. If Ttump wins should we charter a ship to go from New York to Europe, i.e. the reverse of this film?