Reflections on the Holocaust: Would 2026 America Repeat the Mistakes of 1939?
Would the ocean liner SS St. Louis with its more than 900 Jewish refugees be allowed to come ashore in America today? I'm honestly not sure.
“We light this candle in honor of justice, and in gratitude for the Righteous Among the Nations and all those who refused indifference. We are mindful that evil does not need our help, only our silence. They saw injustice and acted. They recognized the warning signs—the words, the patterns, the quiet shifts—and chose courage over comfort. With this candle, we commit ourselves to the same sacred work: to educate, to challenge, to speak, and to stand before injustice grows. May their light not be extinguished in us; may we carry it forward.”
— Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler
For me, it was a solemn and humbling experience to be asked to light a candle for Yom HaShoah, the 2026 Community Holocaust Commemoration sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville.
I was invited to participate because of my on-going stand against hate, and the candle I lit was in honor of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” those who came to the aid of the Jewish community during the dark days of the Holocaust.
“They saw injustice and acted,” noted Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler before I took my turn in the ceremony. “They recognized the warning signs—the words, the patterns, the quiet shifts—and chose courage over comfort.”
Yet, the program from that evening has continued to trouble me—not only because of the dark history it vowed should not be forgotten, but also because of what it might say about the moral clarity of our country today.
Is 2026 America so different from 1939 America?
That program focused on the so-called “Voyage of the Damned,” the transatlantic ocean liner SS St. Louis that set sail from Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939, with more than 900 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi Germany.
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, those refugees had made arrangements to stay in Cuba while they waited for the U.S. government to process their visa applications. But, when they arrived, authorities turned them away. Because of strict immigration laws passed by a KKK-aligned Congress in 1924, U.S. officials ordered the Coast Guard to keep the ship from coming ashore.
“Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, some passengers on the St. Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never responded,” says the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
From there, the St. Louis headed north toward Canada, but they were also denied permission to disembark. The ocean liner returned to Europe where Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France allowed the Jews to immigrate.
Tragically, 254 of the St. Louis’s passengers later died in the Holocaust.
In 2012, the U.S. State Department under President Barack Obama formally apologized in a ceremony attended by 14 surviving passengers.
“This is the intersection of world history and U.S. history at a very dark chapter, and this was unfinished business that needed to be taken care of,” said Hannah Rosenthal, the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.
Six years later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also apologized on behalf of his country.
“By issuing this apology, it is my sincere hope that we can shine a light on this painful chapter of our history and ensure that its lessons are never forgotten,” Trudeau said in his statement. “Antisemitism, xenophobia, and hatred have no place in this country or anywhere in this world.”
These days, America’s most powerful politicians appear to have decided that it is not America’s job to help refugees from other countries in search of safe harbor.
Some are even advocating a return to the immigration laws of the 1920s.
“Whatever fanciful leftist notion to the contrary, the United States of America cannot be expected to absorb the rest of the world’s problems,” said a 2024 letter by Republican Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.), and Scott Perry (R-Penn.) about a proposal to allow Palestinian refugees into the country.
More recently, Ogles has used AI slop video to portray himself as a Crusader out of the Middle Ages, and he has made it clear that Christians are his real concern.
In 2025, President Trump dramatically cut back the number of refugees from other countries, declaring that White Afrikaners from South Africa should receive priority over everyone else.
Last year, Rabbi Sarah Bassin wrote in a post for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society that the decision to turn away the St. Louis “was framed as a pragmatic policy decision at the time.”
She continued, “Denying visas was bureaucratic and bloodless. Its air of reasonableness made it palatable to the public. That is often how cruelty is enacted—with a thin veneer of respectable law and order cloaking the most heinous indifference to inhumanity.”
Would the St. Louis be allowed to come ashore in America today?
I’m honestly not sure.
What do you think?