Patria Disaster - Background

Background

Before the government of Nazi Germany made the decision in 1941 to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, Nazi policy still allowed for the reduction of Jewish numbers in Europe by emigration. Jewish organizations, both mainstream and dissident, ran operations which attempted to bring Jews from Europe to Palestine in violation of the strict immigration rules imposed by the British Mandate government.

This required cooperation with the Nazi authorities, who saw the opportunity to make trouble for the British as well as to get rid of Jews. The Committee for Sending Jews Overseas was an office that operated under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann, organizing emigration of Jews from the Nazi-controlled parts of Europe. In September 1940, the Committee chartered three ships, the Milos, the Pacific and the Atlantic, to transport Jewish refugees from the Romanian port of Tulcea to Palestine. Their passengers consisted of about 3,600 refugees from the Jewish communities in Vienna, Danzig and Prague.

The Pacific reached Palestinian waters on November 1, followed by the Milos a few days later. The ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and taken to the port of Haifa. Warned in advance of the ships' arrival, the British Colonial Office was determined to refuse entry to the immigrants. With the security situation in the region improving following British successes in the Western Desert Campaign, the Colonial Office decided it was less risky to provoke Jewish anger than to risk an Arab revolt, and that an example would be made to dissuade other potential immigrants from making the attempt.

The British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, issued a deportation order on 20 November, ordering that the refugees be taken to the British Indian Ocean territory of Mauritius and the Caribbean territory of Trinidad.

The refugees were transferred to another ship, the Patria, for the journey to Mauritius. The Patria was a 12,000 ton passenger ship which had recently been seized by the British following the French surrender to Nazi Germany. It was a 27 year old steel-hulled vessel with a crew of 130. As a civilian liner, it was only permitted to carry 805 people (including the crew); after its requisitioning, it was reclassified as a troop transport, permitting it to carry 1,800 people (excluding the crew). However, it still only had enough lifeboats for the original 805 passengers and crew, with the rest having to rely on rafts in the event of an emergency.

The refugees from the Pacific and Milos were soon transferred to the Patria. The Atlantic arrived on November 24 and the transfer of eight hundred of its 1,645 passengers began.