In collaboration with the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, Bucks hosted a presentation by Holocaust survivor Ronnie Breslow about her experience as a Jewish child in Nazi Germany. The event was hosted by Bucks Professor Paula Raimondo who teaches the college’s “History of the Holocaust” course.

Breslow recounted her final happy days of childhood. In the early 1930’s, she remembers being unaware of the political news that engulfed her country. Instead, she was excited for the Halloween parades.

During Kristallnacht of 1938, Breslow understood that everything she knew growing up was going to change. “For the first time I was worried about what was going on when the Nazis marched down the streets. My family didn’t celebrate Halloween that time and when the night of Kristallnacht happened, my family was convinced to leave.”

Breslow’s father was given the choice to flee to Cuba alone or stay in Germany with Breslow and her mother. He was eventually able to secure refuge with a friend in Havana, leaving his wife to keep Breslow safe in an increasingly antisemitic environment.

Breslow’s mother found a way to get tickets for both to join her husband abroad. The pair boarded the SS St. Louis on May 13, 1939, on a voyage to Havana, Cuba. After traveling across the Atlantic for weeks, all passengers on the St. Louis were denied entry into Cuba.

Many other ships filled with fleeing German Jews were turned away as well and found themselves on their way back to Germany. Those unlucky enough to travel back to Germany were immediately transported to concentration camps on arrival.

Breslow and her mother found themselves in a different situation aboard the St. Louis. According to Ronnie, “the ship’s captain tried his hardest to keep the St. Louis from reentering into Germany for many of the Jewish passengers would be killed in the holocaust.”

She said that the captain of her ship became her “hero.” He attempted to contact the American government to dock his ship in Miami to no avail. They had no choice but to turn back towards Europe.

The SS St. Louis made landfall in Belgium, where many of its passengers boarded different ships to different countries. Breslow and her mother boarded a ship to Holland, where they were kept in a detention camp.

While Breslow and her mother were detained in the camp for a month, the only way out was with permission from the commander of the camp. Her mother provided letters from her father to the commander, who aided them in finding a new ship to the Americas. Breslow’s family was reunited in America, and as the second World War came to an end, Ronnie, her mother, father and uncle were the only members of their family that survived the Holocaust.

Breslow felt incredibly lucky to have made it to America and recognized her parents’ sacrifice to keep her safe. To this day she puts out an American flag to remember her father’s pride for this country.