Kladovo Transport to Palestine

Holocaust · Refugees/DPs · Victims · Germany · Austria · Czechoslovakia

by Peter Landé

Gabrielle Anderl and Walter Manoschek’s 1993 book Gescheiterte Flucht — Der Jüdische "Kladovo-Transport" auf dem Weg nach Palästina 1939-42 (Failed Flight — The Kladovo Transport on the Way to Palestine 1939-42) describes in incredible detail the ill-fated attempt by Jews to escape Nazi-occupied Europe via a chartered ship, the Uranus.  The ship left Bratislava December 13, 1939, in the hope of reaching the Black Sea via the Danube.  The Uranus, with 800 passengers, got only as far as Kladovo in Yugoslavia (Кладово, today in Serbia), when further passage was blocked by ice floes.

The passengers, who had been joined with several hundred more Jews seeking to escape along the same route, were sent on to Šabac (Шабац, today in western Serbia), where all but a small number who held British entry documents for Palestine remained until after the German invasion of Yugoslavia.  Ultimately, the men were sent on to Zasavica (Засавица, Serbia), where they were murdered in mobile gas vehicles, while the women perished in KZ Sajmište (near Belgrade).  There were very few survivors.

This list of persons who perished originated in the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade.  An additional 23 names were added by Yad Vashem on the basis of postwar documentation, for a total of 1,055.  The majority of the victims were Austrian Jews, but there were also Jews from Germany and Danzig as well as some Jews who had been resident in Šabac.

The fields for this database are as follows:

Note 1: Comments. The Comments column includes occupations in German.  To assist the researcher, please see JewishGen’s InfoFile "German Occupation Definitions - English Translations".

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  (The book's call # is DS 135Y8A53 2001).  The original source material was filmed at the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade, with some additional records from Yad Vashem.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Nolan Altman
Coordinator - Holocaust Database
May 2010

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database and the JewishGen Austria-Czech Database.