On May 13 1939 the SS St Louis, a German ocean liner, set sail from Hamburg. On board were 915 Jewish refugees hoping to escape gathering oppression in Europe. There were dances and concerts aboard the luxury vessel and the indulgent captain permitted passengers to throw a tablecloth over an offending bust of Adolf Hitler. Two weeks later, the ship dropped anchor in Havana, pending what passengers, who had purchased Cuban visas, fully expected to be a warm reception. It was not to be. The Cuban authorities turned them away as, subsequently, did those of the US and Canada. The St Louis was obliged to return to Europe. An estimated quarter of its passengers ended up perishing in Nazi concentration camps.

The St Louis story is served up as a shameful indictment of our forefathers. Yet 75 years later, something just as grotesque is playing out on the azure waters of the Andaman Sea (not to mention the Mediterranean). In the past few weeks, at least 6,000 refugees have been cut adrift in the ocean, refused entry by Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Some 300 have died this year, according to the UN. Dehydrated, emaciated and desperate, unless the situation changes rapidly, many more lives will be lost.

For the Rohingya, the bulk of the refugees, there are echoes of the treatment of Jews in Europe. Many are fleeing refugee centres that have been compared to concentration camps. They are a Muslim minority in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In March the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide sent a mission to Myanmar, where up to 1m Rohingya live in Rakhine state. It found they had been “subject to dehumanisation through rampant hate speech, the denial of citizenship, and restrictions on freedom of movement”. Its report concluded that the Rohingya, at least 170 of whom died in mob violence in 2012, were at “grave risk of additional mass atrocities and even genocide”.