Soccer Dad: The ship formerly known as the president warfield

March 26, 2007

The ship formerly known as the president warfield

The Baltimore Sun tells what became of the ship once known as the President Warfield

A Baltimore liquor distributor on Hanover Street named Mose Speert and a group of businessmen and Zionist leaders met in New York in July 1945 to discuss what to do about the fate of Europe's displaced Jews. The group played a pivotal role in buying and outfitting the Warfield so that it could carry Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine - despite a British blockade against Jewish immigration. In October 1946, the Warfield was sold for $40,000 to the Weston Trading Corp., a front for Haganah, an underground Jewish military organization.

Idle in Baltimore Harbor, the ship had to essentially be rebuilt to accommodate 4,500 passengers. A Baltimore doctor, Herman Seidel, helped stock the ship, which was equipped with an operating and delivery room. Hundreds of bunks were added. To camouflage its illegal trip, the Warfield would depart Pier 5 in Canton under Panamanian registry and with a reported destination of China. Still, rumors swirled around the "rusty excursion boat."

A dock observer "surmised that the owners had other plans when he noted the supply of life preservers and mess kits on board and the appearance of the crew (all Jewish, except the captain)," wrote Robert Burgess and Graham Wood in their 1968 book, Steamboats Out of Baltimore.

After an abortive attempt to cross the Atlantic the President Warfield took on the identity that would make it famous

Finally in July, the repaired Warfield made its trans-Atlantic crossing and boarded passengers in France. To conceal its identity, the ship was now renamed Exodus 1947. The Old Testament book of Exodus describes the flight of Israelites from Egypt. The ship's new name did not fool the British. The Exodus was soon tailed by British destroyers. But the refugees were undaunted and upbeat.

"They were going to their new homeland. These were idealistic people," Siegel says. "We were the Phoenix rising from the dead and coming into a new life."

Even then the world seemed indifferent to the plight of the Jews.

As the ship headed toward Tel Aviv in international waters, the British rammed and then boarded the Exodus. Crew and passengers fought back with fists, cans of food and even potatoes. A crewmember and two passengers were killed in the skirmish. After overpowering the ship, the British then transferred the refugees onto three navy transports headed back to Europe. The mood of the concentration camp survivors became defiant, Siegel recalls.

The reaction to the forced return of the passengers to Europe and the displaced persons camps helped change international opinion in favor of creating the modern state of Israel.

The impetus for the article is the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's search for survivors of the Exodus. The Washington Post has more on the museum's Exodus project. Here are the museum's photo gallery of the Exodus and the museum's brief history of the Exodus.

Blogdigger tags: Exodus 1947, President Warfield, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Displaced Persons.