Chapter VI - If the gates to Palestine had been open…

Summary

The Kladovo group

One of the most tragic chapters of ha'apala was the fate of the so-called Kladovo group of Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany, who attempted to reach Palestine via the Danube and the Black Sea. After the outbreak of war in September 1939, Mossad and Hehalutz activists in Austria began to fear that the Reich might change its policy on Jewish emigration, all the more as Jews from the Reich and Czech territory had already been deported to occupied Poland, to the General Gouvernement. Who could guarantee that this operation would not touch the rest? The decision was taken not to delay. The plan envisaged the transportation by rail from Vienna to Bratislava of around 1,000 Jews, mostly Hehalutz members from Austria, then taking them by means of Deutsche Donau – Schiffahrtgesellschaft to the Romanian port at Sulina, where a ship prepared by Mossad was to be waiting. The organizer of the undertaking was the Viennese associate of the Institute of B Immigration Georg Überall (Ehud Avriel). The Slovak visas were obtained with the help of Berthold Storfer.

The first group of refugees left Vienna on the 24^th of November 1939. In Bratislava they were joined by others, from Slovakia, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Danzig. The success of the undertaking was to be decided by the preparation of a ship which would be able to take the Jews onwards, following their arrival in Romania, to Palestine.