Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

S/S Uranus Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft DDSG Uranus was a Sternklasse paddle steamer, built in 1920.
She was built by the Óbuda Shipyard of the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Danube Steamshipping Co. DDSG, Budapest/Óbuda.
Length: 78,0 metres
Breadth: 17,4 metres
Beam: 9,0 metres
Engine: 1000 Hp
Between the World Wars, S/S Uranus ran regular scheduled services from Wien and Budapest to the lower Danube.
After World War II, S/S Uranus was used, together with her sister, S/S Saturnus, as floating hotel at Linz.
S/S Uranus was operated by the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft DDSG, Erste, First Danube Steamship Company, which was founded in 1829.
From 1868 to 1870, she was known as the Wien-Budapest Steamshipping Co., and before that, the United Hungarian Steamship Co.
DDSG boats navigated the Danube River and her tributaries.
In 1834, Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft DDSG took up marine navigation, sailing between Trieste and Constantinople, as first steamer line in the Mediterranean.
Prior to World War I, Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft DDSG maintained one of the largest inland fleets in Europe (1914: 142 steamers, 860 tugboats with a tonnage of 470,000 t).
After 1918, DDSG remained the leading shipping enterprise on the Danube River (1937: 22 passenger steamers, 25 tug and freight steamers, 394 tugboats, 29 oil tankers).

On October 3, 1939, the steamship, S/S Uranus, sailed from Wien, carrying a group of Maapilim down the Danube River, until she was stopped at the Romanian border and forced to disembark.

Erez Laufer cites: In November, 1939, Ehud Avriel, head of the Hechalutz and Mossad leAliyah Bet envoy in Wien, received permission from Adolf Eichmann, to take 822 Jews from Wien to Bratislava, where they were joined by 130 refugees from Germany and 50 from Gdansk, on the S/S Uranus.
Ehud Überall Avriel, and Moshe Auerbach Agami had established contacts with Nazi officials in Wien and Berlin to arrange transit visas for Maapilim.
In March, 1939, when they applied for 1,000 passports at Adolph Eichmann's Central Office, they were treated like preferred customers; the office proposed issuing a collective passport.

S/S Uranus was forced to return to Bratislava, after she had passed Budapest, towards Yugoslavia, because the Yugoslavian authorities refused to let her pass flying the Nazi flag.
Yehuda Bauer cites the Captain of S/S Uranus refused to sail after reaching the Iron Gates Ђердапска клисура Vaskapu rapids on the Hungarian-Yugoslav border, forcing transfer of passengers to Yugoslav boats.

Mossad leAliyah Bet representatives, with help from Max Spitzer, President of the Jewish congregations of Yugoslavia, hired three Yugoslavian river boats, which waited for the passengers at the border.
S/S Uranus sailed again, and at the Yugoslavian border, the refugees transferred to the three boats, Tsar Dusha, Tsar Nicholai, and Tsarina Marina.
The three Yugoslavian river boats sailed down the Danube River, and reached Kladovo Кладово, near the Romanian border, where they had to stop.
The Yugoslavian boat company refused to continue unless given guarantees that a ship would be waiting for them on the Black Sea, because the boats would not be able to return before the Danube River froze.

Judith Caro cites: In early September, 1940, Maapilim boarded S/S Uranus at the quay in Brataslava,: "We went on board in groups. The five hundred Czech refugees were already there. Our German group was another five hundred people, and there were also one hundred from Vienna. That made one thousand, one hundred passengers altogether on the pretty little white Danube steamer."
Heinrich Henry Wellisch cites: "Jewish organizations were able to make arrangements with the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft (Danube Steamship Company) so that a total of over 3500 Jews from Central Europe were to sail down the Danube on four steamers. Two of these sailed from Vienna with 1800 people, my parents among them. The other two sailed from Pressburg with over 1700 people, some from the Pressburg camps, 600 from Danzig and other places. It took us about a week to reach the Danube delta and on arrival in Tulcea we were immediately transferred to three Greek ships. The Atlantic, the Pacific and the Milos."

On September 5, 1940, S/S Uranus approached Belgrade, with another Danube steamer, S/S Helios, full of Czech refugees who were to join them, behind her.
They passed Belgrade in the dark.

On September 9, 1940, S/S Uranus was given permission by the Romanians to continue her journey, and she entered the Danube Delta and approached her destinationl, Tulcea.

In October, 1940, Four river boats came down the Danube River, S/S Uranus, S/S Schönbrunn, S/SHelios and S/S Melk, heading for Romania.
On Wednesday, September 4, 1940, S/S Schönbrunn and S/S Melk sailed from the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft DDSG quay in Wien.
They passed the passengers marooned at Kladovo, and Pencho halted between Romania and Bulgaria.
On October 11, 1940, the 1,000 passengers of S/S Uranus, sailed on SS Pacific.
On October 19, 1940, the passengers of S/S Melk boarded Milos מילוס, which sailed from Tulcea, carrying 702 passengers, of whom 652 were Czechs, 220 from Brno, 250 from Prague and Slovakia, 182 Betar members, and 50 from Wien.
Milos מילוס began to sink after Melk passengers came aboard.
The Tulcea fire department pumped out water from Milos מילוס, while 400 of the passengers were forced to wait 17 days in wheat silos.

In May, 1941, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia.
S/S Uranus was still in Yugoslavia, where the 915 passengers were caught and killed by the invading Nazis.