Futility Closet - 091-The Voyage of the Damned

Episode Date: January 25, 2016

In 1939, an ocean liner carrying 900 Jewish refugees left Nazi Germany seeking sanctuary in North America, but it was turned away by every nation it appealed to. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the so-called "voyage of the damned" and the plight of its increasingly desperate passengers. We'll also discuss the employment prospects for hermits in Seattle and puzzle over the contentment of a condemned woman. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Sources for our feature on the MS St. Louis: Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts, Voyage of the Damned, 1974. Sarah A. Ogilvie and Scott Miller, Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust, 2006. C. Paul Vincent, "The Voyage of the St. Louis Revisited," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25:2 (Fall 2011). American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, "The Story of the S.S. St. Louis (1939)" (accessed 01/10/2016). Robert Leiter, "Voyage of the Damned: Survivors of the Ill-Fated St. Louis Recall Their Bittersweet Journey," Jewish Exponent, June 17, 1999. United States Coast Guard, "What Was the Coast Guard's Role in the SS St. Louis Affair, Often Referred to as 'The Voyage of the Damned'?" (accessed 01/10/2016). Holocaust Online: Voyage of the St. Louis: Background Information Jessica Shepherd, "Message in Bottle From Voyage of the Damned," Evening Chronicle, Nov. 10, 2003. Listener mail: Levi Pulkkinen, "City of Seattle Looks to Pay $10,000 for Drawbridge Wordsmith," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 14, 2016. Cara Giaimo, "Fleeting Wonders: Seattle Is Looking for a Poet to Live in a Bridge," Atlas Obscura, Jan. 18, 2016 Seattle's application forms for the positions: Writer/Poet Residency Lighting Artist Residency Atlas Obscura, Fremont Troll (accessed 01/23/2016). Wikipedia, Fremont Troll (accessed 01/23/2016). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Maureen Day. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. Enter promo code CLOSET at Harry's and get $5 off your first order of high-quality razors. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Episode 91. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1939, an ocean liner carrying 900 Jewish refugees left Nazi Germany seeking sanctuary in North America, but it was turned away by every nation it appealed to. In today's show, we'll follow the so-called Voyage of the Damned and the plight of its

increasingly desperate passengers. We'll also discuss the employment prospects for hermits in Seattle and puzzle over the contentment of a condemned woman. Our podcast is supported primarily by our amazing listeners. We just wouldn't be able to keep putting in the amount of work that this show takes if it weren't for the donations and pledges that we get. If you would like to pledge some ongoing support so that we can keep making the show, please check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the link in the show notes. Thanks so much to everyone who has been supporting Futility Closet. By 1939, it was becoming clear that anti-Semitism was only going to grow in Germany, and thousands

of German Jews began searching for ways to flee the country. The problem was that most of the European powers had already reached the saturation point in accepting refugees, and so as many as could tried to get across the ocean to America as a way to flee what was coming in Germany. One of the last ships to leave Nazi Germany before Europe was entirely engulfed in war was the St. Louis, which was a German ocean liner that was captained by a man named Gustav Schroeder. That set sail from Hamburg for Cuba on May 13, 1939, carrying 936 refugees who were seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. And this was a big deal because it was one of the last ships to leave the country. Families would search for enough money to send even one member aboard the ship just to flee Germany and get to America.

Interestingly, the journey itself was supposed to have been quite pleasant. The captain, Gustav Schroeder, was not a Jew himself, but sort of an enlightened and good-hearted man. And as soon as they were safely clear of Hamburg, he took down the big portrait of Adolf Hitler and let the passengers practice Jewish religious services and generally ordered the crew to treat them as they would any other customers. I mean, with dignity and respect and giving them all the amenities that they would normally get on an ocean liner like that. And the passengers were surprised and pleased at this. One boy likened it to what he called a vacation cruise to freedom. They thought they were leaving this horrible developing crisis behind them and going to the land of opportunity, which sounded wonderful. When the ship arrived in Havana at 4 a.m. on May 27th, a bell sounded.

One girl wrote in her diary, I have never jumped out of bed so quickly. The sky is dark blue, but I can make out a few white buildings stark against it. There are still stars in the sky. It is like a But strange things began to happen. The ship was denied entrance to the docking areas where it would usually stop, and instead they spent six days in the middle of the harbor and were finally told that the passengers would be allowed to enter only if they had official Cuban immigration visas, which they didn't have. The rules had changed recently, and word hadn't caught up to them. Under the old, they were traveling officially as German tourists,

and a lot of them, most of them, didn't plan to stay permanently in Cuba. They were seeing that as sort of a stepping stone to their ultimate goal, which was the United States. So their plan had been to use German tourist visas just to spend enough time in Germany until... In Cuba. In Cuba, thank you, until they could gain entrance to the U.S., which had immigration quotas. So they held quota numbers that would let them eventually enter the United States, but had to wait somewhere until the quota numbers came up. I see. That would have worked until five days before the ship set sail when this new decree 937 came down with much steeper immigration

requirements now you needed to post a 500 peso bond and have the approval of both the cuban secretaries of state and labor in order to enter the country which they just didn't have wow and that changed five days before they left uh the reasons for this are various cuba like a lot of countries around the world, had already accepted thousands of Jewish refugees, and the newcomers were frequently seen as competition for scarce jobs. The whole world economy was still emerging from the Great Depression. Also, it must be said, there was outright anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Cuba as elsewhere.

This was a particularly bad time in Cuba. The largest anti-Semitic demonstration in Cuban history had been organized by a former president and drew 40,000 people in the capital on May 8th, which is only five days before the St. Louis had left Germany. So it was really just terrible timing for a large group of Jewish immigrants to be trying to gain entrance to the country. So after some uncertainty, 22 of the 936 passengers did have these formal visas and had posted the $500 bond, and they were allowed to disembark in Cuba. But the rest held only these tourist visas and were told they'd have to wait. Havana police came on board and marked an R on

their passports, meaning return, meaning we're not going to accept you at all and you'll have to find somewhere else to go, or you'll have to go back to Germany. Schroeder, the captain, kept reassuring everyone that they would not be returning to Germany and it was generally just a crisis all around. Some of the passengers had family who had already arrived in Cuba and were staying there and these people would charter motorboats to come out and approach the ship, but they weren't allowed to board. It was just really compelling and really a disaster for the passengers because returning to Germany was unthinkable. One woman who'd been a girl at

the time aboard the ship, Liesel Lube, said, at the time we were in the harbor of Havana and things just weren't moving along, we had some suicide attempts and there was near panic on board because many of the men all had to sign that they would never return to Germany. And the only place where we would have ended up was in a concentration camp. They really severed all their ties and sort of pledged that they would never return to the continent, which Cuba said was another argument not to accept them as tourists. If they didn't have any plans to return to the homeland, they could hardly call themselves tourists. Not tourists, yeah. I hadn't thought about that. So what happened was the ship stayed six days in the harbor at Havana and was finally turned away.

There were demonstrations in New York, Chicago, and Washington over this whole situation, but Cuba was sort of adamant that they wouldn't accept it. Demonstrations that Cuba should accept the ship? Yes, and just that the whole thing was kind of a scandal. I see. And a tragedy. So Schroeder, the captain, wasn't sure what to do at this point.

He didn't want to take them back to Germany, certainly, but Cuba was firm about not accepting them. So he circled off the coast of Florida, hoping to get permission now to enter the United States, and was shadowed in those seas by Coast Guard vessels. There are differing accounts of what the Coast Guard's orders were. Some accounts say that they were there explicitly to prevent passengers from jumping overboard and trying to swim to shore.

The Coast Guard disputes this, but in any case, they were there to keep an eye on things because it was far from certain that the U.S. would allow the ship to enter its own and let the immigrants into the United States. The American president, Franklin Roosevelt, found himself in a difficult situation. As I said, the Immigration Act of 1924 had limited by nationality the number of immigrants who could be admitted in a difficult situation. As I said, the Immigration Act of 1924 had limited by nationality the number of immigrants who could be admitted in a given year. So in this case, in 1939, the German quota was 27,370 immigrants. And that had been reached actually already before the St. Louis had even set sail. It's a really specific number. Yeah, I don't know how they arrived at that. So most of the passengers on the ship held a quota number but it was just it wouldn't become

valid wouldn't be enough to get them accepted until some subsequent year uh roosevelt could have issued an executive order to sort of override that and get them in anyway but there were several reasons he didn't want to do that one it would have been unfair to all the other jews who who were waiting in europe or in cuba or on other ships coming across the sea who held lower quota numbers and had, you could say, a more legitimate claim to be able to get in. If they were going to let anyone in, it wouldn't have been, according to the rules, wouldn't have been the passengers on the St. Louis. Second, rightly or wrongly, Roosevelt was running for a third term and had to sort of be mindful of the temper of the American people, which at this time was largely isolationist. As things heated up and got worse and worse in Europe, Americans generally preferred not to be involved in the affairs and others, and this was sort of representative of

the increasingly dire situation in Europe. Also, it should be said that a large part of the Middle America was openly anti-Semitic, just as a large part of the population in Cuba had been. And also here, too, the country was in a business tailspin. And in June 1939, unemployment in the United States was 30 million. And the last thing a lot of people wanted to see was a whole new influx of people, many of whom would presumably be willing to work for low wages, which makes sense, I guess. And the last reason would be that if Roosevelt had let the St. Louis in, it would have encouraged more ships to circumvent the immigration policy. Other ships would come across saying,

well, look, you let them in. It's not fair if you don't let us as well. It was just this air of desperation over the whole situation. None of this was taking place behind closed doors. It was all out in the open at the time, and it was receiving a lot of media attention. Here are some headlines. The front page of the New York Times, refugee ship idles off Florida coast.

The Washington Post, Coast Guard trails tragic liner as it wanders aimlessly in Florida waters. And the Miami Herald had a headline that said, refugee vessel rides at anchor off Miami coast. And it was increasingly a very public scandal that nothing was being done. Well, you said they had demonstrations because Cuba wouldn't let them in. And now, I mean, their own country isn't letting them in. Yeah. You know, you're huddled masses. This is exactly what this country is supposed to be about, is welcoming people like this. And so it was kind of shameful. A lot of people felt that we weren't doing it. Edward G. Robinson and other Hollywood stars sent telegrams to Roosevelt and to the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull,

and a lot of editorials and newspapers around the country condemned the inhumanity of the whole situation. We should emphasize here, this isn't that St. Louis was off in the middle of the ocean sort of abstractly pleading for admittance to the United States. They were just off the coast of Miami. They could see the lights of the city. Children said, later described, seeing palm trees for the first time and seeing cars driving through the city. They were that close. A committee of passengers on the board of the ship sent a cable to Roosevelt. Most urgently repeat plea for help for the passengers of the St. Louis.

Mr. President, help the 900 passengers, among them over 400 women and children. That never received a response. A group of children on board sent letters to Mrs. Roosevelt helping they get more sympathy from her. That didn't get a response. So after a lot of uncertainty, they finally got a formal response from the U.S. that they wouldn't be accepted in the United States.

And, um, next they tried Canada. Uh, the, a group of clergy and academics in Canada tried to persuade the prime minister there, Mackenzie King, to offer sanctuary to them because the ship was only two days from Nova Scotia. But King's advisors persuaded him not to intervene for the same reasons that reasons that Cuba and the United States had sort of turned them away. So that's three different countries now who have turned them away. On June 6th, not knowing what else to do, and with negotiations deadlocked, Schroeder, the captain, set a course for Europe again, as slowly as he could, hoping that that would allow time for them to come somehow to some

negotiated solution to all this. And on the way, the passengers sent appeals to leaders in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and to religious and civic leaders throughout Europe, just looking for any kind of sanctuary anywhere at this point. Tragically, they didn't have money even to do this. They had to pawn their own jewelry, cameras, and even their clothes with crew members aboard the ship just to get the money to send wires out to leaders of European countries just asking anyone to take them in. Here's a cable they sent to Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the UK. 907 passengers on SS St. Louis, half women and children, refused landing in Cuba in spite of

permits and now on return voyage to Hamburg, begged to be saved by being granted asylum in England or at least disembarkation at Southampton. As return to Hamburg impossible and acts of desperation would be unavoidable. Schroeder, I mentioned the captain, was a non-Jewish German himself who went to great lengths to ensure the passengers' dignity and try to find future accommodations for them short of having to go back to Germany. He was honored later, years later, by both Germany and Israel for doing this. He arranged for Jewish religious services on board and, as I said, commanded the crew to treat everyone as well as they would treat any other customers. In fact, as the situation got worse and worse, he personally

involved himself in the negotiations just to try and find any kind of safe haven for them. He refused to return the ship to Germany until all the passengers had been accepted by some other country. And in fact, at one point, he planned to run the whole ship aground on the southern coast of England and set fire to it. And so the passengers would be evacuated and just physically forced some European country to take them on. Because they couldn't get back to Germany. I mean, they would have no means of transportation. Yeah, they would just have to be accepted somewhere. But that just shows how desperate the whole situation was. Finally, as they were crossing

the Atlantic, U.S. officials worked out with Britain and other European nations a plan that would find refuge for them because the governments of four nations finally consented to give them a place. Steamers took 288 of the passengers and brought them to the United Kingdom, and then the remaining 619 were allowed to disembark at Antwerp, Belgium, on June 17, 1939. And they were divided in roughly equal numbers by France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

And then the ship finally returned to Germany. But that's not much of a solution, because by May 1940, less than a year later, the Nazis had invaded Belgium and France and basically overrun Europe and just put these people's lives in jeopardy. They were just in the very situation they'd been trying to escape from. And it's not known what the precise numbers are, but some writers have done some research to try to find out what the actual death toll was, the number of these people who had wound up dying at the hands of the Nazis. There's a very good book about all this came out in 1974 called Voyage of the Damned by

Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts. They estimated that of the original 936 refugees, roughly 709 of them survived the war and 227 did not. In 2006, Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimated 254 deaths, somewhat more. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Subibor. The rest died in internment camps or hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. In other words, of the passengers who returned to continental Europe, only about 60% of them survived the war. Schroeder, the captain I mentioned in 1957, was honored even by Germany, was awarded the Order of Merit by the Federal German Republic, quote, for services to the people and the land in the rescue of refugees. And that, I'm afraid, is the whole story. There's no surprise ending that comes to some happy resolution. The bottom line is that hundreds of desperate refugees were fleeing Nazi Germany, got within sight of the lights of Miami, and were

turned back, had to return to Europe, and met their deaths at the hands of the Nazis there. That's just what happened. Just one other thing to mention, as I was doing research for this episode, this is just kind of a puzzle that's worth mentioning, I think. 64 years after all of this happened, in 2003, a man named John Moore bought a book at a car boot sale in Bath, England for one pound. The book was Voyage of the Damned, the one I just mentioned that just explains, goes through the history of this whole episode. And among its pages, he found a note written in German saying, quote, Please help me, President Breu, or we will be lost. That would have been Federico Laredo Breu, who was president of Cuba at the time of the whole crisis. It was signed by Richard Dressel, who was known to have been one of the passengers

who had apparently dropped it in a bottle into the harbor at Havana. He was dead by the time it came to light, but a newspaper tracked down his daughter, Zilla, who said, I am absolutely amazed. How does a letter in a bottle at sea near Havana turn up in a pile of old books in Bath? My parents never talked about their journey on the St. Louis. I think they had tried to block it out because it was too distressing. And I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question, how the note came. Someone must have found it in the bottle, but how it wound up in a book, and much less wound up in England, nobody knows. That must have been very affecting to find that note in his book, you know?

Yeah, yeah, and that book of all, because it means that whoever found the note did some research to try to learn more about what had happened. But apparently it wasn't Brew. It's cold comfort, I suppose, to know that even if the message had reached President Brew, it wouldn't have done any good. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's, who remind you that 2016 is here, a new year and a fresh start. If you've been thinking about New Year's resolutions,

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such a position. Back in episode 61, Greg had talked about how garden hermits were sometimes hired by wealthy landowners in 18th century England. And then in episode 64, I covered some more recent job openings for hermits in England and Switzerland. Well, a listener let us know just this week that there is now an opening for a hermit in Seattle. Yay! This is the first U.S. hermit position that we've heard of. And good to know that hermits in the U.S. can at least sometimes find work for themselves, right?

There must be some hermits in the U.S. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or Seattle PI as it calls itself, reported in a January 14th article, artsy urban hermits take note. The city of Seattle has just the tower for you. The PI reports that Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture is looking for a writer or poet to hang out in the Fremont Bridges Northwest Tower. The city calls this a residency, though that's a bit misleading as the tower has no running water and isn't terribly well heated. So it's more like they kind of expected to be a working studio for the Hermit's artistic endeavors. Apparently all the Seattle City budgets, the Seattle City departments are required to put one percent of their new construction budgets towards

public art, which is kind of a cool program. It gets them a lot of art. So the Fremont Bridge Hermit will be expected to produce at least one work that can be presented by the city. So this isn't you get to just hang out in a bridge tower. You actually have to produce work. You have to produce, yeah. And the bridge, it turns out, is one of the busiest drawbridges in the world. I had no idea we had busy drawbridges in Seattle. So it's a tower in a drawbridge.

It is. It's a tower in a drawbridge. And the drawbridge operator is in a different tower, so it will be all alone in your tower. According to the City of Seattle's application form, the area for the resident measures approximately 13 feet by 8 feet. Oh, man. It's a little small. It has 10-foot ceilings, though, and is furnished with a desk, chair, overhead lights, windows, and an air conditioning unit. So it's a little on the Spartan side, but at least you get air conditioning,

right? Hey, and apparently there's a 360 degree view, so maybe that'll be inspirational. But yeah, 13 by 8 feet, no running water. I mean, that's just you and your little tower. And just in case words aren't your strength, but you would really like to live at least part-time in a bridge tower, there is another residency available in the southwest tower of the University Bridge. This residency is for an artist who works with light and who will be expected to create a conceptual lighting design for three historic bridges. They don't mention whether this tower has running water or heat or even air conditioning. So they give you an assignment. You have to design lighting for bridges in a bridge tower. In a bridge tower, yes. And you're expected to spend, I gather, at least many hours a week in

your little tower. Atlas Obscura has a story on these positions and it links to some reports by previous bridge hermits of the Fremont Bridge. An interview with one of these in 2009 notes that the Fremont Bridge Tower didn't have Wi-Fi, which kind of seems fitting. I mean, it's, you know, if you're going to be a bridge hermit, you don't get Wi-Fi. Atlas Obscura also notes that the Fremont Bridge gig is just down the street from the Fremont Troll, which, and I learned so many things working on this show, is a massive 18-foot-high concrete troll clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle that lives underneath a Fremont overpass.

Wow. So Atlas Obscura notes that this will be very helpful for poets who can't work without the specter of looming criticism. So for anyone looking to be a bridge hermit, the applications are due by February 16th, so you need to get a move on. We'll have links in the show notes where you can find the application forms

or see photos of the Fremont Troll. And thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. We appreciate all your emails and comments. And if you have anything you want to ask or tell us, please reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an odd-sounding situation, and I have to try to figure out what's going on.

Asking only yes or no questions. I forgot to pick up my notes. You forgot to pick up your notes. This is from listener Maureen Day. And after a whole lot of thinking, I've tweaked a little bit. Okay. In 18th century Sweden, Christina Johan's daughter was sentenced to death. As she awaited her execution, she thought wonderful, things went exactly as I'd planned. What is going on? Okay. are the specific people important? Like, do they have, their specific identities are important? Well, this is a true story.

This is a true story. So, to that extent, yes. So who was sentenced to death? A woman in 18th century Sweden. And you said she was somebody's daughter? No, her name is Johan's daughter. Her name is Johan's... Daughter.

Okay, but she's not somebody's... Sorry, no, that just happens to be her name. In 18th century Sweden, a woman was sentenced to death. Okay. As she awaited her execution, she thought wonderful things went exactly as I'd planned.

Okay, like I was confused by the whole setup. So I didn't even know what was going on. Okay, 18th century Sweden. All right. Is there something relevant about the fact that it's in Sweden? Not particularly, except that it's a different time and place and they...

Had different rules and regulations or norms and customs? I mean... Yes. Yes, things were different than they are now and here. Okay. All right. Does it matter who she is supposed to have murdered? Yes.

Did she actually murder somebody? Yes. Okay. And so she was awaiting execution for murder? Yes. Did she believe she would be executed? Yes. Okay.

Did she want to die? Yes. Ah, okay. Hmm, so did she want to die yes ah okay um hmm so did she murder somebody hoping to die like the whole plan was that she wanted to die herself yes so it's almost like suicide by murdering somebody else and then she'll be executed yes okay but it's still relevant who she murdered to some extent yes you don't have to work out the precise identity, but you need to know. Okay. Was it a relative of hers?

No. No. Did she murder somebody for some kind of ideological reason? Political or ideological or religious? Yes. Political? No. Religious?

Yes. Okay. So she murdered somebody to achieve some religious goal in her mind. Uh, yes. No? For some religious purpose? For some... Yes.

Yeah, I would say that. Okay. She murdered somebody for some religious purpose. Murdered a human being? Yes. For some religious purpose. Does it matter what religion she is do i need to know what religion she is uh i am not positive i even know that okay then apparently i don't need to

know it okay so it's not like a religion with some particular beliefs like did she believe she's going to be reincarnated or or it does i don't know what the religion is for sure but it does matter what the beliefs were okay and that okay. And that's what motivated her. Okay. So does she believe she's going to achieve some reward after death that she's looking forward to? And this is the execution is going to... Yes. Okay. I have to say that carefully.

She believes something is going to happen to her after death. Yes. And that's what she's looking forward to. That's what she's hoping for. That's right. Hmm. So I need to figure out what she thinks is going to happen to her after death yes yes does she believe she'll be reincarnated uh no no does she believe hmm does she believe she's going to heaven yes specifically that she's going to heaven yes yes more than that

a little more a little more than that that she's going to become an angel no no um she specifically oh oh she's gonna be she's gonna go to heaven and be reunited with somebody you're very good at this how many things can happen to you in heaven i mean i don't know she believes she's gonna go to heaven and be reunited with somebody? Somebody specific? Yes. Somebody specific? Yes. That she wants to, the murdered person? No, no, no. The person she murdered?

No. Okay. Somebody that she loved and lost. Yes. And I'll just tell you it's her fiance who had died and she believed was in heaven. So she believes, okay, if I die and I've done some really good deed first, I'll go to heaven and be reunited with my fiance. No.

That's not quite it. No, explicitly not. Explicitly not. Oh, she wants to go to hell because she knows. No, no, no. You said he's going to heaven. I thought, okay. I'd have to think quickly.

She doesn't believe she's done a good thing. She doesn't, but she thinks she's going to get into heaven. Yes. Even though she did something that she didn't think was a good thing. That doesn't, but she thinks she's going to get into heaven. Yes. Even though she did something that she didn't think was a good thing. That's right. That's a little more confusing, isn't it? Okay, back to who she murdered. You said it mattered who she murdered. There's one salient thing about the person she murdered. Just one thing. Just one thing. Does it have to do with what the religion was of the person that she murdered? No. Does it have to do with a position? No.

Is it a he? Was it a he that she murdered? I think it's a she, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter. Was it some activity or actions that the murdered person was doing? No, it's just a fact about the person, a characteristic of the person. Oh. Like the person had some sort of uh like a disability or um

was was the person does it matter what the person's age was yes like it was an infant how do you do that how do you just like land on the right question yes it does and yes it was wrong ones first but i get there eventually i never seem to do that so yes i think of i think of like stories in my head. Like, well, if it was an infant, I don't know. So, like, okay. Yeah, so that's it. The age was the important thing, and you just got it.

It was an infant that she killed. She murdered an infant. Was it her own? No. It matters whose infant it was? I suppose it doesn't really matter. Okay. She murdered an infant.

But it's important that it's an infant. It's important that it's an infant. She chose an infant. Oh, was it some it's an infant. It's important that it's an infant. She chose an infant. Oh, was it some sort of sacrifice? No. Not a sacrifice. She chose an infant, but it doesn't matter whose infant it was or was there some characteristic or identity about the infant that I need to know?

No. No. Did she choose an infant because she thought it was the most heinous thing you could do, which is to kill an infant? No. No. It has to do with her religious beliefs. Her religious beliefs about killing infants?

Yes. About having a dead infant, or about, as opposed to killing infants? Like, you need a dead infant for some reason? No, it's about dead infants, I suppose you could say. It's about dead infants specifically. Was, okay, oh, did she need, like, like an ingredient like infant's blood or you know like um okay and the infant was was born this wasn't like a an abortion or something the infant

was already alive when she killed it that's right so she murdered an infant thinking that this was somehow going to help her get to heaven no thinking that this would get her executed yes but she chose an infant rather than killing an adult because of her religion there's some religious belief about infants about killing infants yes this is the last piece is the only piece you don't have but it doesn't matter who the infant is that's the confusing thing i think of explanations, but it matters who the infant is. She was trying to do the right thing. But it doesn't matter who the infant is. Does it matter where the infant was? No.

She wanted to be reunited with her fiancé in heaven and wanted to do it as virtuously as she could. As virtuously as she could. So she thought killing an infant. But it's not that there was something, like there wasn't some problem with the infant. No, no. Like she thought it was going to die anyway or it was going to have a miserable life and she was putting it out of its misery.

No, it's specifically a religious conviction about the death of infants as opposed to grownups and what would happen to them afterward. What would happen to, oh, the infant would definitely go to heaven? Yes. So she figures, okay, if I kill an infant, it's definitely going to heaven, so it's going to have a happy ending anyway. Right. Basically, you've got it. Here's how Maureen wrote it up, and all of this is true. Maureen writes,

In the 1700s, Sweden struggled with a culture of suicide executions, the most famous of which was that of Christina Johan's daughter. Apparently, she was engaged, her fiancé died, and she wanted to die to be reunited with him in heaven. Unfortunately, suicide was not an option because the religious teachings claimed that all suicides went to hell, which would separate her from her love for all eternity. She tried to think of a way to die that would not be suicide. Upon witnessing an execution, she realized an infant was an ideal victim to help her achieve her goal.

One, she would automatically get the death penalty, which was not a certainty with killing an adult. And two, infants were taught to be without sin and would go straight to heaven. So she beheaded an infant, confessed to her crime in court and her sin to a priest and believed that she would be meeting her love in paradise. She was not an isolated case, but representative of a whole culture of suicide executions at this time. That's fascinating sociologically that there was like a whole wave of these. Yeah, I'm sorry this is so gruesome, but the psychology of it is fascinating. It is. Because people respond to the world as they understand it.

Right. And it's very different there. So looking into this, what Maureen says is true. She thought this was, if you think of it from her point of view, it really was the best solution to a difficult problem. She wanted to get to heaven. Right. She couldn't kill herself. She had to get someone else to kill her.

Right. But, I mean, she would wind up killing an infant, which is an awful thing, but the infant would go straight to heaven and be reunited with its family eventually, and they'd be together in eternity. So everyone goes to heaven. I guess I'm still stuck on that she figured she'd still go to heaven even after killing an infant. Like, that's a little bit of a sticker for me, but... She would get absolution and confess to her crime,

and the teachings were that if you do that, even after killing an infant, you would infant you would go to heaven as long as you like repent or feel sorry enough about it or apparently there's a whole as maureen says a whole wave of these things unfortunately in 18th century sweden the most common reason for murdering a child was a suicide oh my gosh there's a way to commit suicide wow because under that religious conviction that's what that's the way to do it otherwise you're going to go to hell. This way you can get into heaven. Oh, man. And if you kill an infant, then the infant goes to heaven as well. And so it's sort of the simplest, cleanest way to do it.

Huh. Wow. So thank you, Maureen. I'm sorry you got so awful with such a horrible story, but I just think it's fascinating. That is fascinating. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

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