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Powerful photos show Holocaust refugees turned away by U.S.

One of the many tweets posted Friday to the @Stl_Manifest Twitter account. The account posted photos of Holocaust victims once turned away at the U.S. border.(Photo: USA TODAY)

Friday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time for people to both honor those killed under the Nazi regime and prevent future genocide.

Russell Neiss, a St. Louis man, chose to commemorate the day by creating the @Stl_Manifest Twitter account. Using information from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the account is posting photos and names of people turned away at the United States border in 1939, only to be killed in the Holocaust.

The tweets came on the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning immigrants from seven Muslim countries.

The U.N. General Assembly established International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005. It chose Jan. 27 to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration, killing and labor camp. Seventy-two years ago Friday, the Soviet army liberated 7,000 prisoners at Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi's camps where at least 1.1 million people were murdered.

The tweets refer to the German ship St. Louis — carrying nearly 1,000 people, mostly Jewish refugees — attempted to land in Cuba and the United States in 1939, but were turned away. In the case of the U.S., the passengers weren't allowed in the country because they were added to a waiting list of refugees. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said 254 of them later died in the Holocaust.

The powerful photos posted to the @Stl_Manifest account have been making their way across the internet.

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