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1939: A ship sets sail to the USA, taking its passengers from Germany’s dangers…but will they even escape?
The Ocean Liner
What you need to know before your trail
Cousins Masha and Rachel Morgenstern board the luxury liner the SS Manhattan bound for New York, desperate to escape the concentration camps that claimed the rest of their family. America offers a safe haven, but to reach it they must survive a hazardous Atlantic crossing.
They aren’t the only ones fleeing the war. There are several famous and iconic people on board such as the composer Igor Stravinsky, the famous composer, Arturo Toscanini the famous conductor and Rose Kennedy, the mother of the future US president. Rose needs to keep her children safe ,especially Rosemary, a vivacious but troubled woman whose love for a Californian musician may derail her family’s political ambitions.
Then there’s Thomas Koenig, who is also leaving Germany, a young Nazi with secrets of his own…
As the ship sails, the waters may appear calm but underneath the ocean, the Manhattan is being stalked by a German U-boat….
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
The ship
The SS Manhattan is as described in the novel and had a similar passenger list as described in the novel, although of course this is a fictional account
SS Manhattan – from Europe to New York
America didn’t join the war until after the novel ends in 1941. Ships such as the Manhattan were seized by the US Navy. Manhattan for example was recommissioned as USS Wakefield.
The Germans
They had been in port in the Elbe during the last week of August. The day after the declaration of war, they had slipped out to sea again and had headed west into the Atlantic, to the hunting grounds assigned them by Admiral Donitz. They had yet to sight an enemy vessel.
The war news is frightening for everyone on the ship. The Germans superiority was becoming established – not just in terms of weapons but in their methods too.
Stravinsky
Passengers are excited about the Rite of Passage which he wrote in 1934. He’s on the ship during the loweet ebb in his professional and personal life.
Once he arrived in the States, he worked in Hollywood and eventually took on American Citizenship. By 1971 when he died, he was one of the most celebrated of composers.
The Kennedys
Kennedy was withdrawn as Ambassador to Great Britain in October 1940. He had a stroke in 1961. His wife Rose also suffered a stroke in 1984. Rosemary died in 2005 at the age of 86. Her health problems and lobotomy damaged her forever. The political issues of the Kennedys were also a major issue of the time and didn’t help.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
I seem to have a read a few novels set on a ship this year. This one had the most famous people on it in a fictional sense of course as despite the ship and its passenger list being real, what happens on board is of course in the author’s imagination only.
The ship is overcrowded and people are forced to share cabins. They’ve come from far and wide, hiding and escaping from the Nazis. The two Jewish cousins were fascinating but I wanted more of their story to be honest. The fate of Stravinsky and the Kennedys was fascinating however and I had no idea of this ship’s journey and role in their lives as well as the war. Chapters alternated between the ships everyday, when it docked and picked up passengers and the preparations of the Germans off the British coast was a nice way of looking at the ship as a small slice of life, a mix of class, status, money and race in one small space, compared to the wide and frightening stormy waters around it.
There’s lots of atmospheric writing and it does feel as if you’re a passenger too with the worries of everyone else around you. I felt like as if I was privileged to find myself on board a moment of history and I felt as overwhelmed by all the passengers stories as they must have done. A microcosm of the world in one place. Fascinating even if it did read as a documentary at times. There were many loose ends but if you let yourself sail away with the journey rather than the destination then it’s plain sailing. Right that’s enough of the ship analogies. An interesting historical read about a relatively unknown journey in history.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Ocean Liner
Destination : Atlantic Ocean, Southampton, New York Author/Guide: Marius Gabriel Departure Time: 1939
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