oha 2017

The Sea monsters and the sailing ship St Louis, 1939

Art: 2017 (The drawing was begun Dec. 23, 2016; completed Jan. 13, 2017)
Framed, 22 in. H x 26 W
Media: Ink, gouache, colored pencil, stitched tan thread & yellow twine; clothing buttons; color mat board

Portions of a black & white proof; and of a color proof, of a linocut portrait of murdered French surrealist poet  and anti-Nazi activist Robert Desnos (the lino by Segan) are collaged-on the drawing paper.

The ship had about 900 passengers, mainly German Jewish, on board when it left Hamburg for Havana, Cuba. About 20 passengers were allowed to disembark in Cuba.

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Then the United States and Canadian governments denied refugee status to any passengers when the ship went near Miami, Florida and Nova Scotia, Canada. The passengers disembarked in Antwerp, Belgium

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The British accepted about 280 of the passengers, all of whom were alive at the end of WWII. Of those who disembarked in Antwerp and were allowed to enter France and Belgium, a number of them were eventually murdered by the Nazis.

Lower left, in the full porthole:  A portrait of 17 year old passenger Klaus Helmut Goldschmidt.
He was eventually murdered by the Nazis at the Auschwitz death camp complex. His crime?  He was Jewish.  I first learned of his tragic (and unnecessary) fate in Martin Goldsmith’s book, see info about the book, below.

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The half porthole image of a girl, to the left of Klaus, drawn in black and white, was drawn from a photo of a passenger on the ship seen in the photos archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

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The two children seen in the upper left porthole (to viewers right of the ‘sea beastie’) were also drawn from a photo the artist saw in the USHMM website.

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The artist read portions of 2 books for some useful and educational background source material re the history of the ill-fated journey of the St Louis ship and its Jewish passengers:

A children’s book: To Hope and Back – The Journey of the St Louis, by author Kathy Kacer.
A Holocaust Remembrance Book for Young Readers. (Pub. by Second Story Press, Toronto, Canada, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-897187-96-8)

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Alex’s Wake – A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance, by author Martin Goldsmith. (Pub. by DeCapo Press,  Boston, Mass. 2014)
ISBN: 978-0-306-82322-0 (hardcover); ISBN : 978-0-306-82323-7 (e-book).

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Also see:

  • The Sea beasties and the sailing ship St Louis, 1939 (2017 drawing);

  • The Sea demons and the sailing ship St Louis, 1930 (2017 linocut print)