SS Navemar

History
Name: SS Navemar
Owner: Compañía Española de Navegación Marítima
Port of registry:  Spain
Builder: Armstrong W G & Whitworth Co Ltd, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, United Kingdom.
Launched: 1921
Christened: SS Frogner, renamed SS Cabo Mayor from 1927
Acquired: 1932
Fate: Torpedoed and sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar, 23 January 1942
General characteristics
Class and type: Freighter
Tonnage: 5,301 gross
Length: 124.1m
Beam: 16.4m
Capacity: 28 passengers

SS Navemar was a Spanish freighter that was used in 1941 to evacuate about 1,120 European Jewish refugees to the United States in grossly overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.[1]

Pre-World War II

Originally built for Fearnley & Eger of Oslo as SS Frogner, she was acquired by Ybarra y Compania of Seville in 1927 and renamed SS Cabo Mayor. She was sold again to the Compañía Española de Navegación Marítima in 1932 and finally renamed Navemar.[2] On 22 December 1932, Navemar collided with the French steamer Bernardin de St. Pierre at Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, and was beached.[3][4] She later was repaired and returned to service.

Between 1937 and 1938, Navemar was the subject of a court battle in the United States between the government of the Republic of Spain and the ship's crew, who were trying to prevent her from being requisitioned in the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish government won the case following a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States.[5]

Refugee voyage

In 1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (known as "The Joint") were desperate to rescue Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia escaping Nazi persecution. Many held US visas that were about to expire. The Joint's agents directed them to Seville, where the Navemar had been privately chartered to make the trans-Atlantic crossing. Tickets for the few passenger cabins went at exorbitant prices; the captain vacated his cabin and charged $2,000 to all those who could fit themselves into the small space.[6] Bunks were fitted in the filthy cargo holds (which had previously been used to carry coal)[7] and although attempts were made to clean the ship, there was too little time.[8] The Navemar departed from Seville on 6 August 1941, calling at Lisbon in Portugal, where many of the visas were extended by the US embassy.[9] After putting-in at Havana in Cuba, she reached New York on 12 September 1941; many of the passengers had contracted typhus[10] and six of them died during the seven-week crossing.[11] After this voyage, the Navemar returned to general trade and was torpedoed and sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar on 23 January 1942[12] by the Italian submarine Barbarigo.[13]

References

  1. ↑ National Affairs: S.S. NEVERMORE - TIME
  2. ↑ Ybarra Line
  3. ↑ "A collision near Marseilles". The Times (46324). London. 23 December 1932. col G, p. 19.
  4. ↑ "Casualty reports". The Times (46325). London. 24 December 1932. col F, p. 17.
  5. ↑ s:The Navemar Compania Espanola De Navegacion Maritima Sa v. The Navemar/Opinion of the Court
  6. ↑ The Saving Remnant: An Account Of Survival, Herbert Agar, The Viking Press 1960, p. 136 Viewable online
  7. ↑ Artwok, Jenny Cohen - Birmingham Holocaust Education Center
  8. ↑ From the Desk of Jeff King: Bound for nowhere
  9. ↑ The Saving Remnant, p. 137
  10. ↑ Verbannte - Rare Book and Special Collections - LibGuides at University of Newcastle Library
  11. ↑ Ernst Scheuer and Rosi Moses-Scheuer Collection at the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York
  12. ↑ SS Navemar (+1941)
  13. ↑ Regio Sommergibile Barbarigo

External links

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