European Jews saying morning prayer (Shajarit) aboard the Portuguese steamship São Tomé

Taken by Emilio Rosenstein Ster, this photograph shows Jewish Europeans escaping the Holocaust praying aboard the Portuguese steamship São Tomé during the voyage from Casablanca to Veracruz in March-April 1942. 

Born in Lukow in 1912, Rosenstein Ster went to Paris to train as a doctor and also became involved in left-wing politics. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the International Brigades, using the pseudonym Emil Vedin. He served in the Dabrowski Battalion and then in the Armored Division of the International Brigades. When the Negrín government sent the IBs home, Vedin completed his medical education in France as well as assisting Republican refugee children who were in colonies there. 

Following the German occupation of France, he and his sister decided to flee the country and managed to get passage on the São Tomé. In addition to Jews, the passengers included 25 veterans of the International Brigades and some 80 other Republican exiles. The ship also carried German photographer Walter Reuter. During the Civil War, he had served in the Republican army and as a war correspondent. He been interned in a labour camp in Algeria, until his wife secured visas for Mexico. They were among the many thousands who benefitted from the actions of Gilberto Bosques Saldívar, Mexico’s consul general in Marseille, Vichy France.

Emilio Rosenstein Ster would move to Mexico City and found a medical clinic. He also left a lasting legacy in his Diccionario de Especialidades Farmaceúticas (Dictionary of Pharmaceutical Specialties) which continues to be published and is used across Latin America.

This photograph and the story of the São Tomé demonstrate, that in the crucible of World War II, the fate of Republican exiles was intertwined with that of Jewish Europeans as well as other targets of European fascism.