Name SS Navemar Acquired 1932 Length 124 m | Port of registry Spain Launched 1921 Builder Armstrong Whitworth | |
Owner Compañía Española de Navegación Marítima Christened SS Frogner, renamed SS Cabo Mayor from 1927 Fate Torpedoed and sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar, 23 January 1942 | ||
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.
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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. On 22 December 1932, Navemar collided with the French steamer Bernardin de St. Pierre at Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, and was beached. 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.
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. Bunks were fitted in the filthy cargo holds (which had previously been used to carry coal) and although attempts were made to clean the ship, there was too little time. 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. After putting-in at Havana in Cuba, she reached New York on 12 September 1941; many of the passengers had contracted typhus and six of them died during the seven-week crossing. After this voyage, the Navemar returned to general trade and was torpedoed and sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar on 23 January 1942 by the Italian submarine Barbarigo.