Nadene Goldfoot
Our Bubbie, Zlata (Addie) Jermulowski, had a hard time speaking in Yiddish and letting her family and the census taker that she came over on the ship, possibly the Altalena. She was illiterate and never did learn any English. She immigrated May 6, 1903 from Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania. What ships were leaving Lithuania then? None. No, there were no direct shipping routes from Lithuania to the USA. The most common way used to be to go to Germany by train and board the ship there. Mr. Hellmrich to Mr. Peirce
Emigration to the United States via Hamburg
consulate-General of the United States,
Hamburg, Germany, October 8, 1903
Emigrants embarking for the United States at Hamburg should be divided into three classes, viz:
(A) Emigrants arriving from or via Russia
(B) Emigrants arriving from or via Austria-Hungary
(C) Emigrants arriving from other European countries
(A) Emigrants passing the Russo-German border are taken to one of the control stations at Bajohren, Tilsit, Eydtkuhnen, Insterburg, Prostken, Illowo, Otloczyn, or Ostrowo, maintained mutually by the Hamburg America Line and the North German Lloyd, under the supervision of the Prussian Government. At these control stations emigrants are bathed, all their clothes and baggage disinfected and labeled accordingly, and the passengers themselves medically examined and placed under medical observation until their departure.
I just found a Hamburg American line:
- 1903-08-22 SS Pretoria - Hamburg to New York
- 1903-08-27 SS Fürst Bismarck - Hamburg to New York not like her name A or E.......
7/30/03 I searched Ellis Island and could not find her ship starting with A.... The closest I could find was the Adria or Adriatic from Hamburg, but it went to Scandinavian Ports before coming to N.Y. One arrived on 3/6/1903. That's the closest date I could find. Could it be Aultman? Finally! Was she was trying to say the Altalena?
She probably came over on a steamer. "I deem it proper to divide the Hamburg America Line's and Sloman-Union Line's passenger steamers plying between Hamburg and New York (no steamers leaving from Hamburg for other ports of the United States with passengers) into four classes, viz;
1) Express steamers (Auguste Victoria, Columbia, Fürst Bismarck, Deutschland, Moltke, and Blücher).
2) Passenger steamers of the so-called "P" class (Pennsylvania, Pretoria, Graf Waldersee, and Patricia).
3) Steamers of the so-called "B" class (Bulgaria, Belgravia, and Batavia)
4) Steamers belonging to the Sloman-Union Line (Albano, Pisa, Barcelona, and Pallanza)."
By searching for my Bubby's ship, I bumped into another ship that was terribly important to the Zionist cause of which I have been writing about, and that was bringing Jewish immigrants to Israel. However, I was searching for a ship in 1903, and the Altanena was in 1948.
Model of the Altalena
This Day in Jewish History 1948: The Altalena Arms Ship Reaches Israel, and Is Attacked With Friendly Fire: By the end of two tragic days, pitting the newly created IDDF against the irgun, 19 people were dead.
Zeʾev Jabotinsky's Italian pen name was Altalena, the 1,820-ton landing craft was at first used to carry European refugees to Palestine. It became a transporter of arms for the Irgunists following the United Nations's (UN) partition resolution on 29 November 1947, which set off the first Arab–Israel War.
Purchased in Brooklyn, N.Y., for $75,000 by screenwriter Ben Hecht and novelist Louis Bromfield, the old ship was renamed Altalena in tribute to Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Zionist leader who had often used that nom de plume. A radical and fighter, Jabotinsky believed that the reborn Jewish state should be accompanied by blood, fire and bullets. Jabotinsky had died of natural causes in New York City, an exile from the country he sought to create. He left behind, however, a child of his teachings in the form of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (national military organization), led by Menachem Begin. What was the old name? Altalena is a new name.
Britain, the mandate ruler, was the Irgun’s enemy, and its members bombed theaters, attacked prisons to free jailed comrades and took British soldiers hostage to forestall executions of other prisoners facing death sentences. Like its Arab counterparts, the terrorist organization spawned an even more violent splinter group— known as the Stern Gang after its leader, Abraham Stern. That's the group that my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was chief of Intelligence. Little did Zlata Jermulowske know she would be married to Stanley's 2nd cousin.
Altalena had been purchased by the Irgun; the volunteers aboard it were slated to become Irgun fighters; and when it put into Port-de-Bouc, France, in April 1948, it was slated to load munitions purchased by agents in the Irgun’s Paris-based European headquarters. If all went according to schedule, the ship could reach Tel Aviv and an Irgun-controlled dock by May 15, the day after the mandate expired.
The Altalena Affair was a violent confrontation that took place in June 1948 by the newly created Israel Defense Forces against the Irgun (also known as IZL), one of the Jewish paramilitary groups that were in the process of merging to form the IDF. The confrontation involved a cargo ship, the Altalena, captained by ex-US Navy lieutenant Monroe Fein and led by senior IZL commander Eliyahu Lankin, which had been loaded with weapons and fighters by the independent Irgun, but arrived during the murky period of the Irgun's absorption into the IDF. ...Sixteen Irgun fighters were killed in the confrontation with the army (all but three were veteran members and not newcomers from the ship); six were killed in the Kfar Vitkin area and ten on Tel Aviv beach. Three IDF soldiers were killed: two at Kfar Vitkin and one in Tel Aviv.
The Altalena Affair exposed deep rifts between the main political factions in Israel, and is still occasionally referenced in Israeli media to illustrate the modern debate as to whether or not the use of force by the Israeli government against fringe Jewish political elements is legitimate. Proponents of Ben-Gurion's actions praised them as essential to establishing the government's authority and discouraging factionalism and formation of rival armies.
Resource:
https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/overview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena_Affair
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-altalena-affair
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