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Ronnie Breslow, 8, leaves Germany with her mother on the S.S. St. Louis.

St. Louis
Continued from Page 25
“Before I left Germany, there were parades daily” by the Nazi
regime, Breslow said. “The earliest supporters of the regime were
the lawyers, medical doctors and the Ph.D.s,” she explained,
while “the farmers and the working-class people were slower to
accept the ideology.”
Breslow can recall armed Nazi soldiers guarding the door of
her parents’ dry goods store to enforce the Nuremberg law pro-
hibiting non-Jewish customers from entering the store.

“The Gestapo purchased my parents business for a nominal
price and my father was forced to transfer ownership,” she said.

In November 1938, German Jews faced the death and destruc-
tion ushered in by Kristallnacht. An estimated 30,000 Jews were
arrested, including Breslow’s uncle, who was sent to Buchenwald
Concentration Camp. Breslow’s parents immediately began an
evacuation plan.

Breslow and her mother, Elly Reutlinger, boarded a cruise
liner in May 1939 — the M.S. St. Louis — en route to Cuba. But
when the 938 Jewish refugees aboard, including 200 children,
reached Havana on June 2, 1939, they were turned away.

A day later, the captain of the St. Louis, Gustav Schroeder,
sent cablegrams to President Franklin Roosevelt asking him to
allow the passengers to enter America — or at least the 200 chil-
dren — but he never responded. Other countries also ignored
the request.

“We were so close to America I could see the bright lights of
Miami,” Breslow recalled.

Jews that returned to Germany were sent to concentration
26 MAY 9, 2019
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JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



Exclusive & Luxurious
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camps, so the ship was redirected to
Europe. On June 17, 1939, aft er more than a
month at sea, four countries off ered sanc-
tuary to the passengers. England took 287,
France 224, Belgium 214 and Holland 181.

Aft er the Germans invaded, an estimated
600 of the 938 passengers were murdered.

Breslow was one of the passengers sent
to a detention center in Holland.

She and her mother eventually gained
safe passage to the U.S. and reunited with
her father in Philadelphia in November
1939. In the United States, she had a career
as a medical technician and a phlebot-
omist in a medical laboratory before
retiring. Her husband, also a German
Jew, died in 2010, but she has two living
daughters and a son, along with nine
grandchildren. Breslow’s experiences as a child color
her life now.

She recently spoke at a Holocaust
Remembrance Day service held at Temple
Sholom in Broomall.

Th e congregation read the names of
thousands of victims who perished during
the Holocaust for 24 hours as a symbolic yet
intimate promise never to forget.

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Every day, residents take advantage of an array of things to do and
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Assisted Living • Memory Care • Respite Care
238 Belmont Ave. | Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
www.TheHearthAtDrexel.org See St. Louis, Page 28
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MAY 9, 2019
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