In this paper, I will explore "the subtle entanglement of joy, hope and trauma" in the memories of the St. Louis survivors (Anderson and Ortner, 2018, p. 7). The ocean liner M.S. St. Louis left Nazi Germany in 1939 carrying over 900 Jewish refugees toward Cuba, only to be refused entry upon arrival. They were subsequently denied entry by several other nations, including the United States and Canada, and were ultimately forced to return to Europe. Though several European nations accepted the refugees, the former passengers who were given refuge in the Netherlands, Belgium and France soon faced the Nazi threat again as Europe descended into war, and ultimately, 254 of the passengers died in the Holocaust (Ogilvie and Miller, 2006). This traumatic story has been the subject of commemorative efforts in the United States and Canada, as governments and civil society organizations have sought to apologize, remember the event, and honour the victims and survivors. The emphasis, understandably, has been on the tragic nature of the events. However, when survivors recount their experiences, in many cases, their memory of the events includes not only trauma and sadness, but also moments of joy and hope. In particular, the survivors, many of whom were children or teens in 1939, have emphasized the fun they had on the journey to Cuba, and the sense of freedom and adventure they felt. Many have also recounted stories of kindness or courage, and many have recalled the strength with which their parents, and especially mothers, navigated difficult circumstances to get their family passage on the ship.
The USC Shoah Foundation Video History Archive, which is accessible to researchers, contains 61 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors who were passengers on the infamous 1939 voyage of the St. Louis. In these videos, survivors describe their experiences during the Holocaust and the war and recount their memories of their experience on the St. Louis. For this paper, I will view and analyze each of these videos, conducting an open thematic analysis, allowing the survivors' words to reveal the themes that are important to them in their own memory of events. As Wolf (2018) reminds us in her study of post-memory in the children of Holocaust survivors, survivors have agency over how they share their memories of traumatic experience and it is important to study the positive memories as well as the memories of trauma that survivors recount. These video testimonies provide an opportunity to consider the complex reality of memory, and to further our tools and vocabulary for studying memories that include positive emotions and experiences. This paper will contribute to recent discussions in the journal Memory Studies about the need to study not only traumatic memories, but also memories of hope (Rigney, 2018) and joy (Anderson and Ortner, 2018).
