Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

David Teperson, age of four, moved to Johannesburg, where his parents, Abraham and “Ma Teppy”, bought and ran a hotel.

David Teperson and his family lived in Johannesburg, Ficksburg, Cape Town, Clanwilliam, Springbok, Vryburg and Garies, as well as in Namibia.

David Teperson travelled to Palestine illegally via the DP camps in France, to be among the first South African volunteers to fight with the Palmach.

David Teperson travelled to Marseille and sailed to Palestine on a Haapalah ship.
David Teperson cites: "On April 4, 1948, we boarded a World War II Dakota airplane which had refueling stops all the way up Africa," he writes in his book. The plane landed in Cairo and although he and another man got through customs, the other seven were arrested."

David Teperson cites: "At five o'clock in the morning of May 15, we moved towards the Tel Aviv port, being, I think, the first ship to hoist the Israeli flag when entering the port of the new State of Israel."
"The ship - the Teti - moved toward Tel Aviv and barges came alongside with youngsters waving a welcome to the volunteers on board. And then - a true baptism of fire - Egyptian Spitfires were bombing the city; one was shot down and crashed into the beach."
"We saw it happening from the ship, it was like watching a movie," he recalls. They disembarked an hour later and Jewish Agency officials began processing them. One moving incident remained engraved on his memory."

Although an old man by 1948, Samuel Brand emigrated from Germany to the Jewish homeland.
He was the first person from the ship to set foot on Israeli soil.
Samuel Brand carried with him the first visa issued by the Immigration Department of the Government of Israel.

David Teperson joined the 34th Armored Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade and was given a pre-World War I Louis machine gun. and a day after landing in Palestine, he was fighting on the central front.