Patria disaster
The SS Patria was an passenger ship that sank in the Mediterranean Sea on 25 November 1940. It was sailing from the port of Haifa. It was carrying about 1,800 Jewish refugees from Europe during World War II.[1] The British government were deporting them from Palestine to Mauritius because they did not have visas.[2] Zionist organisations opposed the deportation, and the paramilitary group Haganah planted a bomb in the ship to stop it from leaving Haifa.[3][4] However, the Haganah miscalculated the size of the explosion: it killed 260 people and injured 172.[5] The rest of the passengers were rescued by British and Arab boats that rushed to save them.[1]
The British allowed the survivors to remain in Palestine on humanitarian grounds. 221 passengers were buried in the Carmel Beach cemetery in Haifa.[6]
Patria Disaster Media
SS Patria sinking in Haifa port
A nameplate preserved from Patria
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chazan, Meir (2003). "The Patria Affair: Moderates vs. Activists in Mapai in the 1940s". Journal of Israeli History. 22 (2): 61–95. doi:10.1080/13531040312331287644. S2CID 155043034.
- ↑ Bauer, Yehuda (1981). American Jewry and the Holocaust. Wayne State University Press. pp. 143–144. ISBN 0-8143-1672-7.
- ↑ Penkower, Monty Noam (2002). Decision on Palestine Deferred: America, Britain and Wartime Diplomacy. London: Routledge. pp. 55–59. ISBN 0-7146-5268-7.
- ↑ Ofer, Dalia (2004). "A Dual Perspective: Yaakov Shabtai and the Historian's Account of the Deportation to Mauritius". In Lentin, Ronit (ed.). Re-presenting the Shoah for the Twenty-first Century. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 95. ISBN 1-57181-802-2.
- ↑ "Deaths of 260 in 1940 ship explosion commemorated". JWeekly.com. San Francisco Jewish Community Publications Inc. 14 December 2001. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ↑ Perl, William R. (1979). The Four-front War: From the Holocaust to the Promised Land. New York: Crown Publishing Group. p. 250. ISBN 0-517-53837-7.
Other websites
- The story of the SS Patria on Zionism Israel
