Twitter account shares heartbreaking stories of Holocaust victims who were turned away by the US

January 27 marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day designated by the United Nations as a time to remember the Holocaust and its millions of victims.

On this day in 1945, the Red Army entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, many of whom were gravely ill or dying.

SEE ALSO: Dozens of survivors pay homage to victims of Auschwitz

In recognition of the solemn day, a new Twitter account called St. Louis Manifest was started to share the devastating stories of victims who were turned away by the United States when they sought refuge.

"My name is Ilse Karliner. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered at Auschwitz," one haunting post reads.

See just a handful of these gut-wrenching stories:

The account was built by Russel Neiss, who describes himself as a Jewish educator, activist and creator of the Pocket Torah app.

The Twitter account gets its name from a ship called the St. Louis. The St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba, on May 13, 1939 with 937 passengers on board. The vast majority of the passengers were Jews attempting to flee the Third Reich.

Most of the passengers had applied for U.S. visas and planned to stay in Cuba until they officially got clearance. But tragically, tumultuous political conditions in Cuba threatened to keep the ship from docking there.

The Cuban government only admitted 28 passengers when the St. Louis arrived in the Havana harbor on May 27. The remaining passengers were not allowed to leave the ship.

The vessel attempted to seek refuge in Miami, Florida, and many passengers sent messages to President Franklin D. Roosevelt begging for help.

President Roosevelt never responded to their pleas.

A State Department telegram sent to one of the passengers simply stated that they must "await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States."

Despite the efforts of humanitarian groups and Jewish charities, the passengers were sent back to Europe -- and were then divided between Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Tragically, not all of those countries were safe from the aggressive advancement of Nazi Germany.

523 of the former passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe -- and 254 were killed in the Holocaust.

The story of the St. Louis is a haunting reminder of the real-life repercussions of U.S. immigration policy.

AOL.com was not able to reach Neiss for a comment on the St. Louis Manifest account.