Darien II
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1. Darien II was the last Aliya Beth ship to bring refugees to Haifa (now in Israel) before the end of World War II, on March 19, 1941.
Shmarya Tzmerth, a Mossad activist bought the "Sofia S" flying the Panama flag, May 1940 in Athens, Greece. He changed the name to Darien II (Darién is a gulf in Panama). The ship was immediately fitted with berts and latrines so as to become Aliya Beth ship. The plan was to reach the Yugoslavian port and take 1000 refugees stuck on the Danube at Cladova, but Italy entered the war and the Adriatic sea became too dangerous, in the meanwhile the Zionist leaders decided to stop the illegal immigration and help Britain in the war against Nazi Germany, in that spirt the Darien was sold to the Special Operations Executive, a British Intelligence unit to be used in joint sabotage plan on the Danube. Shmarya remained the registered owner.
Though the Darien was British property, the Mossad sent her to Istanbul and from there to Romania in October 1940, the refugees from Cladova didn't arrive so they put aboard 800 refugees from Romania and Bulgaria including survivors from the Salvador, after a series of adventures the Darien II arrived in Haifa. The British Mandate government consficated the ship (they already owned it) and put the passengers in Athlith detainee camp for 18 months.
2. Pole Star was built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1892 for the Northern Lightships board, after changing owners several times became the Darien II, after 1941 the Royal Navy turned the Darien II into cold storage ship and it supplied fresh food to Allied troops in besieged Tubruk & Malta also Sicily and Italy. Ultimately it was left to rot in Port Said and sent for scrap 1952.
[edit] External links
New Documentary Film by Erez Laufer called The Darien Dilemma. The main Character is the late Ruth Kliger of Mossad Aliya Bet that worked for many years in the Mossad.
