Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

The voyage of SS Sakariya סאקאריה was organized by Betar בית"ר, and partially funded by the American Friends of a Jewish Palestine.
The refugees left Wien on Danube river boats, with permission from auspices of Adolph Eichmann.
On November 19, 1939, Saturnus sailed and picked up 600 at Bratislava.
On December 17, Grein sailed, carrying 530 refugees.
Spyroula carried the Paltin Group from Bratislava.
The refugees were kept at Sulina, in frigid conditions with few amenities for weeks until their ship arrived.

In 1939, prior to Hillel Kook Peter Bergson's arrival, the first ITzL אצ"ל delegation to the United States
Under Yitzhak Ben-Ami, the Group established American Friends of a Jewish Palestine AFJP.
The American Friends of a Jewish Palestine AFJP was the earliest of the Committees to support ITzL אצ"ל's underground activities in repatriating Jewish refugess from Nazi-held territories to Palestine.
The objectives of the American Friends of a Jewish Palestine AFJP were to raise money for arms for ITzL אצ"ל, and to help fund its program of moving Jews from Europe to Palestine.
Supporters included:
* Louis I. Newman, Reform rabbi
* Harry Selden, magazine editor
* Frances and John Gunther, authors of Death Be Not Proud

By mid-1940, the war put a stop to most ITzL אצ"ל activities in Europe, and had severed the connections between Palestine and the group in the United States.
Hillel Kook Peter Bergson and his followers focussed on pressing for a Jewish army to fight in the war against Germany.

The American Friends of a Jewish Palestine AFJP was opposed by Jewish leaders, like Rabbi Stephen Wise, leader of the American Jewish Congress and Zionist Organization of America, who was loyal to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and contended that Jews should support FDR's pro-British policy and refrain from "anti-British agitation" over Palestine, "even if the Zionist cause suffered."
The Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, a coalition of major Zionist groups, chaired by Rabbi Stephen Wise, stated that the Aliyah Bet ships "resemble concentration camps."

In 1941, Yitzhak Ben-Ami, Hillel Kook Peter Bergson, Samuel Merlin, Alex Rafaeli, Arieh Ben-Eliezer, and Eri Jabotinsky replaced the American Friends of a Jewish Palestine AFJP with the Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews, which lobbied for creation of a Jewish armed force to fight alongside the Allies against the Nazis.
The Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews employed protest tactics unheard of in the American Jewish community at that time, placing full page advertisements in major daily newspapers, displaying the names of prominent political figures, intellectuals, and Hollywood celebrities who supported the Jewish army cause.
The Bergson Group’s newspaper advertisements, rallies, and lobbying in Washington, combined with behind the scenes efforts by the established Jewish organizations, persuaded the British to establish the Jewish Brigade הבריגדה היהודית, an all-Jewish military unit that was part of the British Army.

Jeno Berkovitz, home for less than a year, cites: “I had been home for less than a year when I read in the newspaper one morning that a group called the American League for a Free Palestine was looking for sailors, They wanted us to help bring Holocaust survivors to Palestine. How could I not go?”