GALINA

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

GALINA

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:42 pm

Israel issued in 2014 a set of stamps of which one stamp and on the tab of that stamp are depict ships, by this stamp the Israeli Post gives the following:

Detention Camp, Atlit
The restrictions imposed by British Mandate authorities on the entry of Jews into Eretz Israel forced Yishuv leaders and various immigration movements to act illegally and bring the Jewish immigrants in on dilapidated ships and under harsh conditions. The British did everything they could to capture the immigrant ships and transfer their passengers to detention camps which were constructed first in Atlit and later in Cyprus. The Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites, which maintains the camp, purchased and renovated a ship similar to those that served to bring the Jewish immigrants and built an exhibit inside, reflecting the immigrants’ living conditions. The site is being developed within the framework of the Heritage Project, including the renovation of the main buildings and the design of exhibits inside them.
The stamp features a ship similar to those used to bring immigrants against the background of barracks at the Atlit detention camp. The stamp tab shows passengers disembarking from the “Umot Me’uchadot” (united nations) immigrant ship onto the shore in Nahariya.

Mr. Dotan supplied my the name of the ship, which is on dry land in the camp and used as a museum as the GALINA, while the other ship on the tab is the UMOT ME’UCHADOT the ex ARCHIMEDE a two mast auxiliary schooner built in 1927. The details of the GALINA are given below.

Built as one of Project 1282 Kareliya type refrigerated trawlers under yard No 296 by the Avangard yard in Petrozavodsk, USSR for the USSR Government..
Launched as PLAMYA.
Tonnage 275 grt, 147 nrt, 88 dwt. Dim. 31.80 x 7.33 x 3.50m. draught 2.76m.
Powered by one 8 NVD 36-1U diesel engine, 300 hp, speed 9.4 knots.
Cooling storage 100 cubic metre hold, where she kept a temperature of between -2 to -4 degree Celsius.
Production in the fish processing plant between 20-35 cans of fish a minute.
One derrick of 1.5 ton lifting capacity.
Crew 13
May 1976 completed. Homeport Klaipeda, Lithuania.

She was one of 124 units mostly built on the Avangard yard but also a few in Bulgaria. The first unit was built in 1964 and the last in 1979.
She was a side trawl fishing vessel and used for fishing in the Baltic waters. The ships of this class were used as coastal fishing vessels with a range of 100 miles from a sheltered place of port, and could stay at sea for 19 days
1992 Under Latvian flag and registry.
1995 Renamed in LIESMA and in 2001 owned by Deltex Commerce, Riga. Latvia.
December 2001 under Cambodian flag.
August 2005 sold to Yager Ltd., Tel-Aviv, Israel renamed GALINA under Georgian flag.
During her voyage to Israel she was under detention for 4 months at Falmouth in 2005/06 for unsafe and unreliable auxiliary engines and other machinery and electrical devices, sanitary conditions a risk for the crew, loose floor plates etc. Then it was given that she was sold to a Mediterranean scrap yard, most probably the reason that she was towed to Israel from Falmouth. Most probably the tow was cheaper than the repair.

2014 Now in use as a museum ship in a dry berth at the detention camp Atlit, Israel. IMO No 7630385

Below is a translation by Mr. Yossi Dotan of a Hebrew wikipedia site and a newspaper article about the GALINA

National site for remembrance of the illegal and legal immigration at Atlit:

In 1987 President Haim Herzog has proclaimed the detention camp as a national site for remembrance of the illegal and legal immigration. It is now a national site named for Moshe Sneh, which commemorates the illegal immigration. On the site there are a number of reconstructed wooden barracks and the original disinfection barrack, which are surrounded by barbed wire and within which is an exposition that presents the conditions of life in the camp, British armored vehicles and watchtowers.

In 2006 an old Latvian fishing vessel was acquired for the site, GALINA, which was about to be scrapped, and was brought to Atlit. GALINA is similar to many of the vessels of the illegal immigrants who were brought to the camp prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, both with regard to her poor condition and with regard to the number of people on such a vessel. In June 2010 a museum for the history of the illegal immigration and a visitor’s center was opened on the vessel. The museum includes audio-visual presentations, and the visitors who view the exposition see a reconstruction of the dense living spaces, the kitchen, the commander's bridge, and the other parts of the vessel as they looked like in the period of the illegal immigration.
On this site, you find a photo of the ship in 2007 before she was converted in a museum ship http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7% ... 7%99%D7%AA
Wikipedia Hebrew also refers to a digital newspaper, Besheva (http://www.inn.co.il/Besheva/Article.aspx/5662 , no illustrations), dated April 2006, part of which I translate below:

"GALINA will be moored in the harbor of Hadera in a few minutes. She tells a story on which people of the council for preservation of historical sites have worked for over more than three years.

"In December 2003 a small group of volunteers, among whom men who served with the former Palyam (the precursor of the Israel Navy during the period of the British mandate - YD), started looking for a vessel that can be used as a museum exhibit, as an example of an illegal immigration ship. [I did not give the names of the persons who headed this group – YD]. The group reviewed the details of 62 illegal immigration ships that made the voyage to then-Palestine after World War II for which information was available. About a quarter of those ships had a weight of 150-250 tons and a length of 25-30 meters. On such vessels there were between 200 and 500 illegal immigrations. It was important to find a ship with similar size that could be transported overland from the harbor to the site of the Atlit camp. From the beginning on, the group decided to work with the Electricity Company which owns one of the largest cranes in the world, which can reach to a height of 150 m and can transport a weight of 800 tons.

The Palyam volunteers sought vessels all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe, from where came most of the illegal immigration vessels and to where such vessels were sold. Members of the group traveled to Cyprus and to Latvia to check out ships similar to the original illegal immigration ship YAGUR. After reviewing options, it was decided that the ship should be brought to the harbor of Hadera which is adjacent to the electrical power station Orot Rabin.

After a year of searching, in December 2004 a suitable ship was found in the harbor of Riga, Latvia, the GALINA. She is 31 m long, 7 m wide, she draws 3 m of water and her weight is about 250 tons. She has four holds. On the various levels of the ship the visitors will be able to see in the best way possible the life and suffering of the illegal immigrants at sea. The fact that there are additional holds gives the possibility to show more exhibits in the museum.

One of the employees of the Electricity Company, a former professional diver, dived and checked the bottom of the ship, and the possibility to lift the ship from the water and to transport her on a vehicle to Atlit. This lifting required detailed planning and making exact calculations of her centers of gravity so that the ship not be damaged.

After GALINA set out there were engine problems and she was diverted to a harbor in southern England. Here trouble began. Once again, it was the British who refused to allow the continuation of GALINA's voyage. They said that the condition of the engines was not good enough. So, after long negotiations, it was decided to continue to Hadera with the help of a Dutch tug.

GALINA was welcomed by many Palyam officers and illegal immigrants who came to Israel in such ships. Most of them, about 125,000, including babies, youth, adults and seniors were Holocaust survivors who came from Europe to the Land of Israel in such poor ships, trying to break the British blockade.

GALINA was in Hadera for two days. Then the work began to take her out of the water. First the Israeli flag was raised on the ship. The leader of the volunteer group told that this was made possible by Frank Louis of Australia and the Keren Hayesod – Collective Israel Appeal. Louis was born in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and came to Israel as an illegal immigrant on the YAGUR, which left Ciotat, France with 754 illegal immigrants on board. Louis' ship was seized by the British Navy and towed to Haifa Harbor. The illegal immigrants were arrested and were the first to be exiled to the British detention camps in Cyprus. Louis and his fellow illegal immigrants were allowed to come to the Land of Israel after four months of detention in Cyprus. They were brought to the camp for illegal immigrants in Atlit in December 1946 and were subsequently allowed to leave, according to the immigration quota allotted by the British. Louis decided to donate a sum to finance the commemoration of the illegal immigration.

YAGUR was one of 65 illegal immigration vessels that were organized in 1945-48 by the Jewish population of then-Palestine and its Hagana military organization. She was named for Kibutz Yagur, the settlement on which the British focused when they looked for illegal armaments of the Jewish settlers on "Black Saturday," which was one month before YAGUR left on her voyage.

GALINA, the twin of YAGUR, is now safely in Israel and will be restored so as to serve as a museum that will tell of the illegal immigrants and their life at sea.

Organized illegal immigration started in 1934 and ended with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Tens of thousand of Jews, among whom Holocaust survivors from Europe and refugees from Arab countries, risked their lives, and with suffering, struggle and loss of life continued coming to Israel, hoping to found there once again a homeland for the Jewish people. About 120,000 illegal immigrants came by air, over the sea and over land. They constituted about one fifth of the total population of Israel at the time of the establishment of the State. About 3,000 additional illegal immigrants died on their way to the Land."

The first illegal immigrants' ship was the WALLACE ex VOLOS, which arrived in Palestine on 26 July 1934. The last such ship was the KRAV EMEK AYALON (Battle of the Ayalon Valley) which arrived on 26 May 1948. In 1934-39 there arrived 52 ships with on board over 15,000; in 1940-45 40 ships with over 14,000; in 1946-48 62 ships with over 75,000. Overland came about 10,000, by air about 150. Many others came with other ships under false identity."

Yossi Dotan

Sources: info received from Mr. Gennadiy Sitnikov and with thanks to Mr Dotan for the translation. http://www.equasis.org and various web sites.
Attachments
plamya.jpg
galina.jpg
galina stamp.jpg
2014  Galina.JPG

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