Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

In 1935, Nachum Piernikarz travelled to Palestine, and acquired 5 acres of land near kibbutz Naan קיבוץ נען.

In June, 1938, Artemisia Ἀρτεμῑσίᾱ ארטמיזיה sailed from Pireaus Πειραιάς on her fourth voyage, organized by Revisionists, carrying 386 passengers.
Raphael Ben Yehuda cites: "The sailors, who were Spanish communists and veterans of the civil war, looked upon us as fascists."
This was the first transport organized by William Perl in Wien.

Asher Ben Natan cites: "On June 6, 1938, I bade farewell to my parents and my sister, and set out on my journey...Our group, which numbered 40 members, joined with a group of hundreds of Jews, most of whom were members of Betar, and some were ultra-orthodox adults from Burgenland. After a train journey via Yugoslavia, which lasted almost 24 hours, we reached Pireaus. In Piraeus, waiting to sail, we were kept in a camp...We sailed after two weeks had elapsed, about 400 of us Jews on a decrepit Greek boat showing a Panamanian flag. The ship was crowded and filthy, and our food consisted only of dry rusks, sardines and olives, but we were young and our spirits were high."
"We were dropped off at Tantura, near Zichron Yaakov, about 30 meters from the beach, which we traversed on foot...We saw that some young men were galloping on horses along the coast. Later we found out that these were Etzel people, whose task was to ensure our safety. We were brought by bus to Tel Aviv and dropped off in the center of the city."

Asher Ben Natan cites: "As we neared the coast of Palestine, Moshe Krivshin, who called himself Moshe Galili, took over command of the ship and sported an impressive uniform of an entirely fictitious Italian admiral."

In June, 1938, Raphael Ben Yehuda sailed on Artemisia, from Piraeus to Tantura.

Asher Ben Natan cites: "Joseph Barpal recruited me for service with "Aliyah 'B", and referred me to the Investigations Section of the Jewish Agency in Haifa."
"In the winter of 1942, an agreement had been signed between the Jewish Agency and a British Intelligence section, for running combined operations in enemy countries. Candidates for these operations were sent to do parachute, deployment and sabotage training and were instructed in methods of acquiring information. The assumption was, that these emissaries would base their activities on the Jewish underground, and in addition to their military duties would help with the rescue of Jews from the Nazi inferno."
"In March 1944, the Agency set up a special unit in Haifa, one of whose main functions was to collect information on the organizations and institutions that were active in Europe, such as underground movement; information which would enable emissaries to penetrate into enemy lands. Gideon Rufer (Raphael) headed this section."

Asher Ben Natan cites: "In the winter of 1944, Rufer assigned me to the job of going out daily to the Atlit Transit Camp to question immigrants, to try and elicit information about the fate of Jewish communities in the conquered territories, from which they had arrived."
"Another of my assignments at this camp was to prevent the infiltration of enemy agents, and indeed, a non-Jewish agent had been discovered among Rumanian immigrants. I handed him over to the British Intelligence representative, a Jewish man by the name of Tavori, who had also been investigating immigrants in the camp."

In 1945, Asher Ben Natan returned to Wien, for the Mossad leAliyah Bet, as a journalist, with Shaul Avigur and Ephraim Dekel to help organize immigration of Holocaust survivors to Palestine.