Ujifusa, Steven. The Last Ships from Hamburg: The Business, Rivalry, and the Race to save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I. Pub. 2023. 328/365p.
Leader: Roberta Goren
DC Library: Book- 1 available
MCPL: Book – 1 available
From 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fled their homelands in Eastern Europe, primarily Russia and came to the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg, Germany. The mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement has been largely forgotten: Albert Ballin, a German Jew who was managing director of Hamburg American Line, the company that transported most Jews to the US, Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of investment bank Kuhnm Loeb & Co. He spent millions of his own money helping Jews leave Russia and donating to charities in NYC to help new Jewish arrivals. JP Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine Co trust which tried to control and be the largest company moving Jews and other Eastern and Southern Europeans to the US. There is a fourth person in this book-Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from Massachusetts, and friends who began in 1895 to agitate for keeping out all of these undesirables because they would bring disease and contaminate good American stock. Most of the story ended with World War I when Jews and others could not leave Europe because of the British blockade. The end of Jewish and other Eastern and Southern immigration came with the change to US immigration laws in 1923 and 1924. This is a very interesting book about this period of time. Perhaps some of our book club readers have relatives who came during this time on one of these ships and they have stories to tell us.
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