Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

On September 26, 1947, SS Paducah Geulah גאולה sailed from Varna Варна for Palestine.
Arnold Kite cites: "Winter, 1947, Burgas Bulgaria on the Black Sea. The “Paducah” will this day receive the Ma’apilim, the ‘illegals’, those that have survived the death camps of Katzet, Totenlager. The Russians, after playing cat and mouse, have decided to release the men, women and children, having herded them into cattle cars along the pier railhead. The Jews may sail from Europe now. They must leave at once! Today. Or be returned to the camps they came from. The Jews may sail now from Europe to Eretz Israel."
"During the morning and afternoon hours they came aboard, some sick, some walking straight and upright, some fearful imagining horrors to come as they recall previous queues. The old men and women, clutching a few personal belongings, incredulous that before them, assisting them, the crewmen of the “Paducah” speak to them in Yiddish, in Hebrew, in English and sometimes, to obtain maximum and prompt response to orders, in German. "

Syd Abrams served as Seaman and Purser aboard SS Paducah Geulah גאולה.

Arnold Kite served as Seaman and Wiper, aboard SS Paducah Geulah גאולה.
Arnold Kite cites: "I made contact with the Mosad for Aliya Bet and was on my way to Miami, Florida in just a few weeks. From Miami we left the States on a ship built in the 1920’s and bought from the US by the Mosad for Aliya Bet. The ship was the “SS Paducah”, later renamed the “Geula”."
Ben Hagai Steuerman cites: Arnold Kite "...served on the Paduca ferrying DP's to Palestine on the fateful voyage in which the ship was boarded by the British Naval forces and the crew and passengers detained in Cyprus. He remained in Israel working on a kibbutz for some years after the war. He returned to live out his remaining years in Buffalo Grove."

Benny Kubersh served as Gidoni גדעוני, wireless radio operator. aboard SS Paducah Geulah גאולה.

Naftali Zloczower and his parents sailed from Romania on Paducah Geula גאולה.