Winnipeg (ship)
SS Winnipeg in 1939.
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| Builder: | Ateliers & Chantiers de France, Dunkirk, France |
| Fate: | 22 October 1942: sunk by German submarine U-443 in the Atlantic Ocean |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Steam Passenger ship |
| Tonnage: | 9,807 tons |
| Length: | 143.9 mt |
| Beam: | 18.2 mt |
| Propulsion: | Two triple expansion engines |
| Speed: | 14 knots |
| Crew: | 114 officers & crew |
SS Winnipeg was a French steamer notable for arriving at Valparaíso, Chile, on 3 September 1939, with 2,200 Spanish immigrants aboard. The refugees were fleeing Spain after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The Chilean President Pedro Aguirre Cerda had named the poet Pablo Neruda Special Consul in Paris for Immigration, and he was charged with what he called "the noblest mission I have ever undertaken": shipping the Spanish refugees, who had been housed by the French government in internment camps, to Chile.
After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Pablo Neruda noticed that many Spanish Republicans had fled in exile to France where they were detained in squalid camps in miserable conditions. The poet, who was then living in Chile, decided to organize their travel to Chile. He first worked as Chilean consul in Spain, before being named consul in Paris.
The ship was an old French cargo ship which ordinarily could not take more than 20 persons, but it was adapted so it could carry the 2,200 refugees. Neruda actively worked in this endeavour, reuniting families separated by the war. Beside the assistance of his friends artists and writers, he was helped by his wife Delia del Carril.
On the night when the Winnipeg set sail, on August 4, 1939, in the port of Trompeloup - Pauillac, Pablo Neruda wrote:
Pero este poema, que hoy recuerdo, no podrá borrarlo nadie.
But this poem, that today I remember, nobody will be able to erase.
The Winnipeg arrived at the port of Valparaíso on September 3, 1939. On the following day, the Spanish Republicans were officially received by the Chilean authorities. Some of them had already landed, a few days before, in the port of Arica, in northern Chile. In a gesture of thanks, the refugees attached to the ship's mast a large canvas with the face of the Chilean President painted on it.
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Wikipedia