Museum of Secret Immigration and the Navy in Haifa
Haifa, located in the north of Israel, is not only the third largest city in the country - it is home to about 270 people. inhabitants, and in the metropolitan area about 700 thousand - and an important seaport, but also the largest Israeli naval base. This last element explains why the military museum, officially called the Museum of Secret Immigration and the Navy, is located here.
This atypical name stems directly from the origins of the Israeli Navy, whose origins they see in the activities undertaken before, during and during World War II, as well as between the end of the global conflict and the declaration of the state and aimed at illegal (from the point of view view of the British) Jews to Palestine. Since this issue is almost completely unknown in Poland, it is worth paying attention to.
Secret immigration and the origin of the Israeli Navy
The idea of organizing Jewish immigration to the territory of the Palestine Mandate, bypassing British procedures, was born in the mid-17s. The situation in Europe, London will sacrifice Jewish immigration in the name of maintaining proper relations with the Arabs. These predictions turned out to be true. On April 1939, 5, the British published a "White Book", the records of which indicated that in the next 75 years only XNUMX thousand people were allowed into the mandated territory. Jewish immigrants. In response, the Zionists stepped up immigration action. The beginning of World War II did not change the policy of Foggy Albion. This led, among other things, to tragedies in which the ships Patria and Struma played a major role.
The Patria was an approximately 26-year-old French passenger ship (built in 1914, 11 BRT, Fabre line from Marseille) on which 885 Jews were loaded, previously detained on three ships sailing from the Romanian Atlantic, the Pacific Ocean and Milos, coming from Tulcea. . The British were going to deport them to Mauritius. To prevent this, the Haganah, a Jewish militant organization, sabotaged the ship, rendering it unseaworthy. However, the effect exceeded the performers' expectations. After the explosion of explosives smuggled on board, Patria sank on November 1904, 25 in the Haifa roadstead along with 1940 people (269 Jews and 219 British soldiers guarding them died).
Struma, on the other hand, was a Panamanian-flagged Bulgarian barge built in 1867 and originally used to transport cattle. It was bought with donations from members of the Betar Zionist organization, supported by a group of wealthy compatriots who wanted to help at all costs to leave Romania, which was more and more hostile towards the Jews. On December 12, 1941, the overloaded Struma, with about 800 people on board, set off for Istanbul. There, as a result of pressure from the British administration, its passengers were forbidden not only to disembark, but also to enter the Mediterranean Sea. After 10 weeks of stalemate, the Turks forced the ship back to the Black Sea, and because it had a faulty engine, it was towed about 15 km from the coast and abandoned. There were 768 people on board, including more than a hundred children. On February 24, 1942, the drifting Struma was discovered by the Soviet submarine Shch-213. Despite the good weather, its commander, Captain S. mar. Denezhko classified the ship as part of the enemy and sank it with a torpedo. Of the Jewish passengers, only one survived (he died in 2014).
Covert immigration intensified after the end of World War II. Then it took on an almost massive character. The fate of the ship Exodus has become her icon. This unit was purchased in 1945 in the USA. However, until the beginning of 1947, British diplomacy managed to delay the trip to Europe. When the Exodus finally put to sea and after many hardships associated with overcoming various obstacles multiplied by the British, she reached the outskirts of Haifa with the settlers and was captured by the Royal Navy on July 18.
