SS Quanza
{{Short description|Portuguese refugee/passenger/cargo ship}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
|+Quanza {{Infobox ship image | Ship image = File:Quanza foto.jpg | Ship caption = Side view of SS Quanza }} {{Infobox ship career | Hide header = | Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|Portugal|1945}} {{cite book |title=South Atlantic Seaway |last=Bonsor |first=N R P |year=1983 |publisher=Brookside Publications |isbn=0905824067 }} | Ship renamed = Quanza (1929) | Ship owner = Companhia Nacional de Navegação, Lisbon | Ship operator = | Ship registry = Lisbon | Ship route = Lisbon to Southern Africa | Ship ordered = | Ship builder = Blohm & Voss, Hamburg | Ship original cost = | Ship yard number = 480{{cite web |url=http://www.miramarshipindex.org.nz/ship/show?nameid=81167&shipid=79640|title=Quanza |publisher=Miramar Ship Index |accessdate=8 December 2012}} {{subscription required |date=December 2012}} | Ship way number = | Ship laid down = | Ship completed = 5 September 1929 | Ship christened = | Ship acquired = | Ship maiden voyage = | Ship in service = | Ship out of service = | Ship identification = | Ship fate = Scrapped 1968 in Spain | Ship notes = }} {{Infobox ship characteristics | Hide header = | Header caption = | Ship class = | Ship tonnage = *{{GRT|6636|disp=long}} | Ship displacement = | Ship length = {{convert|418.2|ft|abbr=on}} | Ship beam = {{convert|52.6|ft|abbr=on}} | Ship height = | Ship draught = | Ship draft = | Ship depth = {{convert|28.6|ft|abbr=on}} | Ship decks = | Ship deck clearance = | Ship ramps = | Ship ice class = | Ship sail plan = | Ship power = | Ship propulsion = Twin screw | Ship speed = {{convert|14|kn}} | Ship capacity = | Ship crew = | Ship notes = }} |
SS Quanza was a World War II-era Portuguese passenger-cargo ship, best known for carrying 317 people, many of them refugees, from Nazi-occupied Europe to North America in 1940. At least 100 of its passengers were Jewish.
Early history
Launched as Portugal, the vessel went into service in 1929 as Quanza. Her normal route was from Lisbon, Portugal, to Angola, South Africa and Mozambique, though some voyages were made to South America.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGqE27fAHio#! |title=S.S. Quanza: Journey of Refugees from Lisbon to Norfolk |first=Greg |last=Hansard |date=3 March 2010 |work=Virginia Historical Society |publisher=YouTube |accessdate=5 December 2012 |archivedate=1 July 2015 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701023433/https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rGqE27fAHio |url-status=live}}
August{{spaced ndash}}September 1940 voyage
In August 1940, Quanza was chartered by a group of passengers seeking to flee Europe, including French actors Marcel Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau. The passengers traveled with a variety of visas, some of which were forged. Because the captain doubted the validity of the visas, he required that many passengers also buy return tickets on the likelihood that no country would admit them. The ship left Lisbon on 9 August, beginning its first trans-Atlantic voyage. After a difficult crossing that included a hurricane, the ship arrived in New York City on 19 August. 196 passengers disembarked, 66 of whom were American citizens. One of these was Dr. Stephan Kuttner (1907–1996), who later became one of the most important scholars of medieval canon law in the world. He was a Roman Catholic, but his ancestry was German Jewish. He was fortunate enough to have a passport from the Vatican for himself and his family.Bull. of Medieval Canon Law, vol. 30, p. 159 (2013). The remaining 121 passengers were denied entry, including nearly all of the Jewish passengers.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/nyregion/08quanza.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |title=Fleeing Hitler and Meeting a Reluctant Miss Liberty |first=Cara |last=Buckley |date=8 July 2008 |work=The New York Times |accessdate=5 December 2012 |archivedate=14 June 2018 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614172402/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/nyregion/08quanza.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |url-status=live}} Quanza proceeded to Veracruz, Mexico, where it arrived on 30 August. Only 35 passengers were allowed to disembark, leaving 86 on board, mostly Belgian Jews.{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63446899.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314074147/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63446899.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=14 March 2016 |title=Rescue of Jews Recalled Little-Known Nazi Era Story |first=Stephen |last=Huba |date=28 April 2000 |work=The Cincinnati Post |accessdate=5 December 2012}} The ship was then ordered to return to Europe, causing despair among the remaining passengers.{{cite book |title=No Ordinary Time |last=Goodwin |first=Doris Kearns |year=1994 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQcMDdFC1QEC&pg=PP1 |isbn=9780684804484 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=wQcMDdFC1QEC&pg=PA174 174]}}
The ship made a brief stop for coal in Norfolk, Virginia, in the US. During the stop, Jacob Morewitz, a Jewish maritime lawyer from Newport News, filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of four of the refugees, suing the Portuguese National Line for $100,000 for breach of contract.{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-205932961.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410061752/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-205932961.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=10 April 2016 |title=Journey to freedom passed through Lambert's Point Docks in 1940 |first=Lia |last=Russell |date=16 August 2009 |work=The Virginian-Pilot |via=|accessdate=5 December 2012}} The suit held Quanza in port for six days, during which time Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Stephen Wise of the World Jewish Congress and Cecilia Razovsky of the National Council of Jewish Women, lobbied for the remaining passengers' admittance.{{cite book |title=Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America from Colonial Times to the Present |last=Diner |first=Hasia R. |first2=Beryl Lieff |last2=Benderly |year=2002 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780465017119 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=UPsT2zBNtA0C&pg=PA365 365] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UPsT2zBNtA0C&pg=PP1 |accessdate=10 December 2012}} Meanwhile, Quanza{{'}}s passengers became so desperate that one leapt from the ship to swim for land; though he reached shore successfully, he was quickly apprehended and returned to the ship. Following the incident, the ship's captain posted armed guards on the decks.
When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was informed by Jewish-American associations of the situation, she appealed to her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who dispatched State Department official Patrick Murphy Malin to investigate the passengers' status. Malin designated all 86 as political refugees and issued them visas, though six chose voluntarily to return to Europe. The eighty who remained in the US entered the country on 14 September.{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-5235446.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307212334/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-5235446.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=7 March 2016 |title=Small but beautiful |first=Meir |last=Ronnen |date=1 February 1998 |work=The Jerusalem Post |via=|accessdate=5 December 2012}} Some of the refugees later sent President Roosevelt roses with a note reading, "with everlasting gratitude for your humane gesture, from the refugees of the SS Quanza."{{cite book |title=Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust |last=Rosen |first=Robert |year=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9781560259954 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mC1MFqELLpUC&pg=PA196 196–197] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mC1MFqELLpUC&pg=PP1 |accessdate=10 December 2012}}
Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long, who was nominally in charge of refugee issues, was enraged by the granting of visas to the Quanza refugees and insisted that it must not occur again. Long renewed his efforts to block immigration, and by mid-1941, almost no war refugees were allowed into the US.{{cite book |title=Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust |last=Feingold |first=Henry L. |year=1995 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=9780815626701 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ts5lKWho2YwC&pg=PA78 78–79] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ts5lKWho2YwC&pg=PP1 |accessdate=10 December 2012}}
Fictional representations
In 1991, Susan Lieberman and Jacob Morewitz's grandson Stephen Morewitz wrote a play about the events titled Steamship Quanza.{{cite news |url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/steamship-quanza/Content?oid=877827 |title=Steamship Quanza |first=Mary Shen |last=Barnidge |work=Chicago Reader |accessdate=5 December 2012 |archivedate=4 March 2016 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304130507/http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/steamship-quanza/Content?oid=877827 |url-status=live}} Victoria Redel, whose father and grandmother had been on the voyage, published a novel about the ship's crossing in 2007 titled The Border of Truth.{{cite web |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-178895207.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116220107/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-178895207.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 November 2018 |title=Victoria Redel. The Border of Truth |first=Stefanie |last=Sobelle |date=22 March 2008 |work=Review of Contemporary Fiction |accessdate=7 December 2012}}
Non-fictional representations
"Nobody Wants Us" Emmy nominated PBS documentary that chronicles the experiences of three teenagers that were imprisoned on SS Quanza in the port of Hampton Roads, Virginia. Along with 83 other refugees, they were hoping to be allowed on American soil — where millions of others in distress had safely landed before them. The film also highlights individuals who helped the refugees escape the Holocaust.
See also
- {{MS|St. Louis}}
References
{{Reflist|33em}}
External links
- [https://www.nobodywantsus.com/ Nobody Wants Us] (2019 documentary film about the SS Quanza)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quanza, SS}}
Category:World War II merchant ships of Portugal
Category:International maritime incidents