Wladislaw Siwiecky Galik, that was his name, though everyone called him “Vladis” for short. That was my great-grandfather, a polish-jew born in Krosno. When he was 13, barely a teenager, Hitler takes Germany, the threats to the jewish community were bigger as the days went by, and an imminent invasion to Poland was planned as well.

It was Vladis' eighteenth birthday, and his long-time girlfriend had some big news for him. “Vladis, we're having a baby and I'm so scared”. That was it for Vladis, he had to protect his family and leave the country before the Nazis made it to Poland. A newspaper ad caught his attention, the Caribia Cruise offered a one-way-trip to America for 250$ exclusively for jews; it was Vladis' great chance to keep his family safe, but there was an issue. The Caribia would sail to America from the coast of Hamburg, in Germany.

That was their last chance to save themselves from the war that the amount of politic tensions was announcing, so he had to make the decision. They had to board that cruise. Both of them attempted to take the first train to Hamburg, but the trips had been cancelled and the routes were being used only for business purposes. The driver allowed them and some other group of people to hide between the apple bags in exchange for a certain amount of coins, though, and soon they arrived to the city, where they made their way straight to the port.

There were only 80 tickets and all of them had been sold out, Vladis even witnessed how some people got on their knees to beg the captain to let them board the cruise. The captain supported the Nazi regime himself, but was sympathetic enough to let the eight people left in, my great-grandfather and his girlfriend included, under the condition that they would travel in the deck, exposed to the weather and its severity. That's how the 21 days long, hard trip started.

They arrived Barbado's coast, where they weren't allowed to land in fear of the reprisals that might've been taken against them from who was considered, at the time, world's most powerful man: Hitler. They made their way to Dominican Republic, then, where they tried to negotiate, though the Government demanded an indemnization from USA to allow entry to those 88 jews. USA never answered. Trinidad y Tobago was their last chance, but they received the same answer; they wouldn't be allowed to land. That's when the captain finally spoke to the passengers: “the order was to throw everyone to the sea if you weren't accepted as refugees anywhere” tell my grandfather.

Desperate and afraid, they received some letters from jewish communities in Venezuela, asking them to try to reach La Guaira's harbor. Back then, President Eleazar López Contreras was in charge of the country, and also in charge of the decision of allowing or not the entry of the ship. After 12 hours, the president still hadn't pronounced a single word.

The venezuelan community started pressuring the Government, the press equally began publishing articles regarding the refugees' situation, asking why they weren't being accepted into the country, since after all, most of them were probably professionals and were only looking for a second chance to live.

In consequence of the lack of communication, the captain ordered to move to Puerto Cabello (Venezuela), arriving after midnight on February 3rd, in 1939. At their arrival in Puerto Cabello, they could only stay until 8PM, but despite all of the negotiation made by personalities from the jewish communities in Caracas and Valencia, the autorization wasn't coming. My great-grandfather recalls the way some villagers threw tropical fruits to the deck, and how that was the first time he ever saw a coconut and a mango.

At the established hour, the captain ordered to sail and return to Hamburg, under the astonished look of Carabobo's population, and holding onto the despair of those who knew themselves condemned to die.

Once the news broke, the president's wife, Maria Teresa Nuñez, scolded him. “Are you letting all these people die? You're in charge here, put your pants on and start behaving like the president”, Mercedes recalls, having witnessed her mother's anger.

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Two hours after the ship had sailed, the autorization from President Eleazar Lopez Contreras arrived to Puerto Cabello, allowing those 88 jews to finally land. The passengers had to beg the captain to go back to the port, Vladis even thought about throwing himself and his wife to the sea and swim back, but none of this was necessary, for the captain soon decided to return

The darkness prevailed at such hours of the night, hindering the captain's task to land. The villagers, then, turned their lamps on, pointing to the sea, and started a fire in the beach. That's how they succeeded to anchor and my great-grandfather and his girlfriend finally landed on the new world.