On Shoreless Sea
The MS St. Louis Refugee Ship in History, Film, and Popular Memory
Published on 1. October 2025
Book
Hardback
476 pages
979-8-8558-0375-4 (ISBN)
Description
Combines new archival research with innovative theory to reassess the ship's dramatic voyage and analyze its representation in a broad range of texts, films, and artifacts of popular memory.
In 1939, the ocean liner MS St. Louis undertook a dramatic voyage with over nine hundred Jewish refugees that caught the world's attention and has been remembered in numerous printed texts, films, and artifacts. Denied permission to dock in Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the ship was finally forced to return to Europe, where many of teh refugees ultimately perished in the Holocaust. On Shoreless Sea is the first work to comprehensively analyze the journey's unfolding, its historical context, and its key representations in various media. Based on new archival research and featuring a translation of Captain Gustav Schroeder's account of the voyage, the book corrects long-standing misassumptions about its subject. Author Roy Grundmann illuminates the voyage's historical significance and demonstrates its relevance to our present, in which prosperous nations once again stem mass migration. Arguing that the Jewish refugee crisis was caused not only by anti-Semitism but also by colonialism and neocolonialism, Grundmann calls for Holocaust studies to expand its field of inquiry and methodology. Working at the intersection of Holocaust studies, postcolonial theory, film and media studies, and cultural studies, On Shoreless Sea reads St. Louis memory culture as a reservoir of contradictory attitudes toward migration whose texts both intentionally and inadvertently testify to the need to discuss the Holocaust in relation to other genocides without denying its uniqueness.
In 1939, the ocean liner MS St. Louis undertook a dramatic voyage with over nine hundred Jewish refugees that caught the world's attention and has been remembered in numerous printed texts, films, and artifacts. Denied permission to dock in Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the ship was finally forced to return to Europe, where many of teh refugees ultimately perished in the Holocaust. On Shoreless Sea is the first work to comprehensively analyze the journey's unfolding, its historical context, and its key representations in various media. Based on new archival research and featuring a translation of Captain Gustav Schroeder's account of the voyage, the book corrects long-standing misassumptions about its subject. Author Roy Grundmann illuminates the voyage's historical significance and demonstrates its relevance to our present, in which prosperous nations once again stem mass migration. Arguing that the Jewish refugee crisis was caused not only by anti-Semitism but also by colonialism and neocolonialism, Grundmann calls for Holocaust studies to expand its field of inquiry and methodology. Working at the intersection of Holocaust studies, postcolonial theory, film and media studies, and cultural studies, On Shoreless Sea reads St. Louis memory culture as a reservoir of contradictory attitudes toward migration whose texts both intentionally and inadvertently testify to the need to discuss the Holocaust in relation to other genocides without denying its uniqueness.
Reviews / Votes
"Written in lucid prose and supported by detailed archival work, this book is a significant contribution to the argument that the Holocaust and colonialism were not two separate processes but profoundly entwined." - Max Silverman, Professor of Modern French Studies, University of Leeds, and author of Palimpsestic Memory: The Holocaust and Colonialism in French and Francophone Fiction and Film"Grundmann digs beneath the layers of international popular memory and scholarship by coupling impressive archival research with novel conceptual frameworks to provide new-if still controversial-perspectives on the facts as well as the myths and cultural lore about the tragic incident. He implicates the degraded ethical legacies of Western racist biopolitics and colonialist histories as inadequately assessed factors leading to a tragedy not dissimilar to those occurring today. Readers may find most striking Grundmann's searching readings of films and other popular cultural memorial forms that, informed by Michael Rothberg's concept of 'multidirectional memory,' can generate revelatory investigative strategies for Holocaust studies scholars to pursue and provide new insights into contemporary tragedies." - Stuart Liebman, Emeritus Professor of Art History and Film Studies, CUNY Graduate Center
"On Shoreless Sea is an incredibly detailed and comprehensive examination of the events involved and is of particular interest to the film scholar readership toward whom the book is especially dedicated. Grundmann shows himself to be an astute interpreter and chronicler of history and a passionate advocate that this story is worth memorializing in detail in readable prose and with intelligent organization." - Dr. Richard Barton Palmer, Clemson University
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
College/higher education
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
49 Illustrations, black and white; 16 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
803 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-8558-0375-4 (9798855803754)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2025
State University of New York Press
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Roy Grundmann is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Boston University. He works at the intersection of film and media studies, migration studies, and maritime history.
Content
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
1. Jews During the Third Reich: Between Flight and Entrapment
2. Neocolonialism, Biopolitics, and the Jewish Migrant Business: HAPAG and MS St. Louis
3. Voyage 98: The Unfolding of a Fateful Odyssey
4. The St. Louis Passengers and the Press Coverage of Voyage 98
5. On Shoreless Sea: The St. Louis Voyage, the State of Exception, and the Colonial Turn in Holocaust Studies
Part II
6. The St. Louis Voyage in Popular Memory
7. Voyage of the Damned on the Big Screen
8. Germany Revisits the St. Louis Voyage: Die Ungewollten - Die Irrfahrt der St. Louis (The Unwanted - The Voyage of the St. Louis)
9. The St. Louis Voyage and Grassroots Historical Revisionism: Robert Krakow's Independent Film Complicit
10. The St. Louis in Multidirectional Memory
Epilogue: "With Whose Blood Were My Eyes Crafted?" Philipp Scheffner and Merle Kroeger's Havarie (2016), the Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, and the St. Louis Voyage
Part III
Appendix 1: Introduction to Gustav Schroeder and His Accounts of Voyage 98
Appendix 2: Homeless on the High Seas (1949) by Gustav Schroeder, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 3: Captain's Log, Voyage 98, Part 1, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 4: Captain's Log, Voyage 98, Part 2, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 5: Addendum to the Captain's Log of Captain Gustav Schroeder, MS St. Louis, on the 98th Voyage home, translated by Roy Grundmann
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
1. Jews During the Third Reich: Between Flight and Entrapment
2. Neocolonialism, Biopolitics, and the Jewish Migrant Business: HAPAG and MS St. Louis
3. Voyage 98: The Unfolding of a Fateful Odyssey
4. The St. Louis Passengers and the Press Coverage of Voyage 98
5. On Shoreless Sea: The St. Louis Voyage, the State of Exception, and the Colonial Turn in Holocaust Studies
Part II
6. The St. Louis Voyage in Popular Memory
7. Voyage of the Damned on the Big Screen
8. Germany Revisits the St. Louis Voyage: Die Ungewollten - Die Irrfahrt der St. Louis (The Unwanted - The Voyage of the St. Louis)
9. The St. Louis Voyage and Grassroots Historical Revisionism: Robert Krakow's Independent Film Complicit
10. The St. Louis in Multidirectional Memory
Epilogue: "With Whose Blood Were My Eyes Crafted?" Philipp Scheffner and Merle Kroeger's Havarie (2016), the Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, and the St. Louis Voyage
Part III
Appendix 1: Introduction to Gustav Schroeder and His Accounts of Voyage 98
Appendix 2: Homeless on the High Seas (1949) by Gustav Schroeder, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 3: Captain's Log, Voyage 98, Part 1, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 4: Captain's Log, Voyage 98, Part 2, translated by Roy Grundmann
Appendix 5: Addendum to the Captain's Log of Captain Gustav Schroeder, MS St. Louis, on the 98th Voyage home, translated by Roy Grundmann
Notes
Bibliography
Index