Patria disaster

The Patria disaster was the sinking on 25 November 1940 by the Haganah of a French-built ocean liner, the 11,885-ton SS Patria, in the port of Haifa, killing 267 people and injuring 172.

At the time of the sinking, Patria was carrying about 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe whom the British authorities were deporting from Mandatory Palestine to Mauritius because they lacked entry permits. Zionist organizations opposed the deportation, and the underground paramilitary Haganah group planted a bomb intended to disable the ship to prevent it from leaving Haifa.

The Haganah claims to have miscalculated the effects of the explosion. The bomb blew the steel frame off one full side of the ship and the ship sank in less than 16 minutes, trapping hundreds in the hold. The British allowed the survivors to remain in Palestine on humanitarian grounds. Who was responsible and the true reason why Patria sank remained controversial mysteries until 1957, when Munya Mardor, the person who planted the bomb, published a book about his experiences.

Before the government of Nazi Germany decided in 1941 to exterminate all Jews in Europe, its policy allowed the reduction of Jewish numbers in Europe by emigration. Jewish organizations, both mainstream and dissident, ran operations that tried to bring Jews from Europe to Palestine in violation of the immigration rules applied by the British government.

This required cooperation with the Nazi authorities, who saw the opportunity to make trouble for Britain as well as to get rid of Jews. The Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration or ZjA) worked under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann, organizing Jewish emigration from the Nazi-controlled parts of Europe. In September 1940 the ZjA chartered three ships, SS Pacific, SS Milos and SS Atlantic, to take Jewish refugees from the Romanian port of Tulcea to Palestine. Their passengers consisted of about 3,600 refugees from the Jewish communities of Vienna, Danzig and Prague.

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