By Daniel Fliegler
My father, Heine (Franz) Nissan Fliegler, always felt that all the experiences of his life were preparation for his role in Aliyah Bet.
He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the “Wobblies”) and was a lifelong anarchist. He and my mother Gussie were part of the crowd that stormed the Nazi passenger ship “Bremen” and tore off its Nazi flag when it arrived in New York City in 1935. The judge who heard the case refused to recognize Nazi Germany as a legitimate state, proclaimed the Nazi flag a pirate flag, and dismissed the case.
My father eventually found work as a sailor in the Merchant Marine. With the advent of World War II he was enrolled in the Merchant Marine Academy and became an officer. He sailed on the “Israel Putman” as a navigator, bringing war supplies to Murmansk in Russia. He served in a convoy that was later named “The Forgotten Convoy” because it was guarded by a naval escort going to Murmansk, but not on the journey back, making it an easy target for the Luftwaffe. Out of 20 ships in the convoy, only a quarter survived.
After the war, my mother acted at the behest of friends in the Haganah and recruited my father to sign up for what was to be the first ship to successfully bring in a large number of Jewish refugees, 1,300, into Israel in defiance of the British Navy. The ship, which was to be called the “Josiah Wedgwood” was a war surplus Canadian corvette. My father was the Executive Officer. The senior officers were experienced seamen. The rest of the crew were volunteers with no sea experience who had to be trained. The “Wedgwood” was fitted in City Island, New York and sailed off in 1946. It stopped briefly for repairs in the Azores before continuing to its destination, Italy. The British tried to get the Italian authorities to stop the ship after it picked up the refugees. The writer, I.F. Stone, had joined the ship at this time and he went ashore to argue with the Italians. In the meantime, with the refugees aboard and the tide high, my father ordered the lines cut and took the “Wedgwood” out to international waters. In the process, half the leadership of the Haganah in Italy now found themselves on the “Wedgwood” out at sea. My father gave them a lifeboat with instructions on how to steer back to the Italian coastline. Upon approaching Palestinian territorial waters the British Navy came out to stop the “Wedgwood” from entering. My father ordered the ship’s engine destroyed, leaving the British with no choice but to tow the now helpless “Wedgwood” to Haifa. Seeing the missing lifeboat, the British assumed that all the “Wedgwood’s” officers had abandoned the ship and were making a run for the coast.
As this was the first ship the British intercepted with such a large number of refugees, the British bussed them to the detention camp at Atlit, where they were eventually released. As subsequent ships arrived, Atlit filled up and the British started using detention camps in Cyprus and other locations. My father and some of the other crew members were able to give the British the slip and sneaked off the bus before it reached Atlit. At the exit to the port, my father was stopped by an Arab policeman asking for papers. Seeing an American naval ship also docked in the port, my father pretended he was a sailor from that ship suffering from the DTs and begged to be allowed to go to a bar just outside the port area. Offering him a cigarette and giving him the whole pack was enough to convince the policeman to let my father through.
Given the name Rudolf Valentino, the Haganah hid my father from the British. At one point he was staying with a cousin who ran a bar frequented by British soldiers. It dawned on him that sitting in the bar all day nursing a drink and surrounded by British soldiers was the safest place to hide. He hid out at one time in Jerusalem and was about to visit the Western Wall but the bombing of the King David Hotel forced him to flee. Eventually the Haganah smuggled him back to Italy where he signed on to a ship sailing to America.
In later years, my father sailed with the Israeli shipping company, Maritime Overseas. He finished his sailing career by being a port captain, usually in Texas. After retiring my father got involved in the publication of a Yiddish anarchist newspaper called the “Freie Arbeiter Stimme”. A documentary about the paper was made and features my father. It can be seen on Youtube by entering “Free Voice of Labor’.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH0q3Lqr9UU)
Source: American Veterans of Israel Newsletter: Summer 2013
Written by Daniel Fliegler