In 1947 Paul Kaye was asked to be part of top-secret mission to smuggle Holocaust survivors into pre-state Israel. He was warned that if he was caught he could be hanged. Paul didn’t hesitate: “Let’s go!”
In an Aish.com exclusive interview, Paul recalled how he managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible: to secretly smuggle, ship after ship, traumatized Jewish refugees to the Land of Israel. These clandestine voyages were part of Aliyah Bet which saw over 100,000 desperate Jews try to flee to pre-state Israel in the years leading up to 1948.
In 1947, Paul was a 20-year-old US Navy veteran. He’d volunteered to fight in World War II when he was only 17 and served briefly in the Pacific Theater as a marine engineer before the war ended. Afterwards, he returned home to New York and was living with his sister in an apartment in the Bronx.
Those who organized and sailed these boats faced prison or death.
Unbeknownst to him, Israel’s underground fighting force, the Haganah, the precursor to Israel’s army, was working to find people to help sail refitted ships from Europe to British-ruled Palestine. Thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors were living in camps in Europe, housed in impersonal centers years after the war. Though most of these broken survivors longed to reach the Jewish homeland, Britain refused to allow these Jews in. The Haganah organized a series of daring escapes, buying and refitting scores of old ships that were often barely seaworthy. If British forces caught these secret ships, they interned the passengers once more in DP camps on the island of Cyprus. Those who organized and sailed these boats faced prison or death.
One of these Haganah organizers called Paul. “Hello, Paul Kaminetzky?” said an unknown voice on the line, using Paul’s original family name. “We’d like to know if you want to help your people.”
Paul was told to go to the corner of 39th and Lexington Ave. at a certain time the next day and to follow a man with a leather jacket holding a newspaper. If the man were to suddenly throw away his newspaper, it means they were spotted and Paul was to return home. The caller abruptly hung up.
All went according to plan and Paul was led to a secure location where a daring proposition was put to him: would he help sail boats between Cyprus and Palestine? The overloaded vessels would be sitting ducks in the Mediterranean, easy prey for British forces if they were found. Those organizing the voyages faced possible execution. Paul didn’t flinch. To this day, members of his synagogue say to him with a grin, “Let’s go!” in memory of that fateful day when he was recruited into the Haganah.
Paul (lower left with gun), Al Ellis next to him, upper left is Lenny Cohen and Hal Fineberg in Caesarian training as Seals 1948
His first ship was called Tradewinds. Docked in Baltimore harbor, it was a former US Coast Guard cutter that was now registered in Panama. It’s Haganah-trained crew sailed to Portugal, where they ran into a snag. British forces refused to allow it to refuel. A local captain overheard Paul say, “Oy vey!” and asked him if he spoke Yiddish. Paul said yes, and the captain donated Tradewinds fuel to continue her journey.
The boat journeyed to Lisbon, then to Italy, where it would pick up its passengers. While in Lisbon, Tradewinds was docked next to another Haganah ship, the President Warfield, that was waiting to pick up refugees. Paul became friends with Bill Bernstein, an American crew member who’d volunteered to help ferry Jews to Palestine. The President Warfield went on to pick up over 4,500 Holocaust survivors and change its name on route to Israel to The Exodus.
The Exodus
Paul’s boat took on a smaller passenger load, about 1,500, and Paul remembers the moment these battered refugees stepped on board the vessel as one of the most important in his life. “They were haggard,” Paul later recalled. “They had all they owned on their backs. They came up, they hugged and kissed us and said, ‘We are going to Eretz Yisroel (the Land of Israel). We’re going to our home.’”
British forces forced the HATIKVA to sail for Cyprus. Paul knew that grave consequences that faced him there.
That first trip ended in near-disaster. An airplane spotted the Tradewinds and alerted British destroyers who surrounded the boat. Undaunted, Paul and the crew painted over their boat’s name, renaming it the HATIKVA, Hebrew for hope. British forces forced the HATIKVA to sail for Cyprus. Paul knew that grave consequences that faced him there. “There was always fear,” he recalls.
He was saved from British prosecution and prison or worse by a young Romanian Holocaust survivor who was a passenger on board. Paul’s shoes were covered with oil, a giveaway that he was an engineer and had been working on keeping the barely seaworthy vessel running. The Romanian traded shoes with Paul and when the boat docked in Cyprus, Paul spoke Yiddish and identified himself as a displaced person. “My father never spoke any English,” Paul explains. “I grew up in New York speaking Yiddish at home and blended right in with the passengers.”
Immigrants crowd together on the deck of the ship, Hatikvah
Paul remembers one Haganah member, a former US Navy Officer, who only knew English. Thinking quickly, Paul told British officials that he was a Holocaust survivor who was too traumatized to talk. Despite carrying out their orders to stop and imprison these Holocaust survivors, many British soldiers showed compassion to the broken men and women in their care. The British officer began to cry and quickly left the room, sparing Paul’s comrade detection and a sentence of prison or death.
In Cyprus, the British instituted a quota system, allowing 750 Jewish prisoners each month to be transferred to the Atlit prison camp in Israel, near Haifa. His first month interned in Cyprus, Paul drew a lucky number; he was one of the 750 to be allowed to transfer to Israel. But Hal Fineberg, another American Haganah fighter (who later changed his name to Zvi Galil and fought in Israel’s War of Independence) was gravely ill with scabies and Paul gave his spot to him.
In Cyprus, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, Paul and the prisoners learned that the ship The Exodus en route to Palestine had been intercepted by British destroyers. Bill Bernstein, the other American volunteer Paul had befriended in Lisbon, was killed in the fighting, as well as two refugees. As Paul and other Jews languished in prison camps in Cyprus, things looked hopeless. One thought sustained them: the hope that one day they might make it out to the Land of Israel.
Paul eventually got his chance: he was one of another group of 750 prisoners selected to be sent to Atlit prison near Haifa. He would still be held prisoner for no crime other than wanting to enter the Jewish homeland, but at least he’d be on the soil of the Land of Israel.
With the help of the Haganah, Paul eventually escaped from Atlit prison, slipping under a barbed wire fence, and joined the Palmach, the Haganah’s elite fighting force. He returned to the United States with a fake passport and manned two subsequent ships that successfully brought Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine.
On May 14, 1948, when Israel declared itself a state, Paul was with a boatload of desperate Jewish refugees making their way to Haifa. They quickly changed the name of their boat, a Panamanian-flagged ship called Director, to the Hebrew name Galila. That day, Paul now recalls at the age of 90, when the Jewish people once again had a national homeland, was his proudest moment. “We put an Israeli flag up on our ship - it was the first time we were able to sail as an Israeli ship.”
Paul eventually served in Israel’s navy and then returned to New York where he married and built a family.
Paul Kaye wearing an Israeli Navy hat
Looking back, he credits his incredible desire to help his fellow Jews to his mother’s influence. Paul’s father died when he was young and his mother had a strong Jewish identity. World War II was a turning point in Paul’s young life. “When I saw what Hitler was doing to the Jewish people I realized I have to do what I can do.” At the age of 17, that meant enlisting in the US Navy. At 20, it meant risking death and imprisonment to fight with the Haganah.
“We are being persecuted today as well. Anti-Semitism is increasing around the world and we have to stand up.”
Paul speaks publicly about his own experiences and tries to motivate young Jews to “stand up for themselves and to be proud Jews.”
Many have called Paul a hero but Paul doesn’t view himself that way. “I was working for my people. I had no choice but to step up and help my fellow Jews. When you’re working for your people, you’re not a hero.”
May we each find the strength to feel the obligation to help, and when our time comes to act, to say without hesitation, “Let’s go!”
Paul Kaye is featured in the documentary 4 Million Bullets: The Untold Fight for Israel’s Survival, that includes first hand testimonies about the clandestine effort to bring survivors to the Israel. Click here for more information.
(16) Tiferet, August 29, 2019 4:29 PM
Mr. Kaye should man another boat and bring home some more Jews.
Mr. Kaye should man another boat and bring home some more Jews in these days and in this time. “Let’s go!”
(15) Anita, August 23, 2019 4:33 AM
Many of us cannot imagine that there were so many heroes during and after the holocaust. With little hope, Jews were able to make it to their homeland because of so many brave men willing to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, to make it happen. Dangerous times can produce the "Davids that are willing to fight the Goliaths".
(14) Rochelle Israel, February 27, 2019 8:23 PM
Absolutely very proud of heroes such as Paul.
The State of Israel would not exist without the heroic endeavors of people
who risked their lives to help the survivors of the holocaust and people from threatened Sephardic communities come to the State of Israel.
(13) Wilson Nkwanda, February 26, 2019 5:37 PM
Iam very impressed with Paul's story.
I adore Paul for his courage
(12) jeff hoffman, March 20, 2018 3:09 PM
Heroes for the youth
Paul Kaye is one of the featured heroes in our documentary, "4 Million Bullets: The Untold FIght for Survival" see www.squashhouse.net/4-million-bullets
(11) Cara Rosenburg, July 5, 2017 2:17 AM
Siiiiiiiick!!!!!!!!!!! How do you know about him????????????
(10) Larry Schnebly, July 4, 2017 5:50 PM
On INDEPENDENCE DAY (July 4 for the U.S.) it is important to remember OTHERS lives and sacrifices for freedom, too!!
Paul Kaye is one of those who DID something....and was brave enough to do what he could.
(9) Mike, July 1, 2017 9:20 PM
yashar koach
I think people who fought for the Hagana were also threatened in the US with loss of citizenship
(8) Fanny, June 30, 2017 6:30 PM
A true hero! Thank G-d we have such brave people among us to have helped our people and serve our land. May we have more men like this today and always.
(7) Anonymous, June 28, 2017 5:20 PM
The Untold Story
Read "Perfidy" from Ben Hecht, "The Unheeded Cry" from Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandel ZT"L, Rav Avigdor Miller Z"L, multiple articles etc, where you will find out about the role of the Hagana in the second world war, that they sunk and returned ships with Religious Jews and saved only Jews who were secular and would serve for the Zionist cause.
For example, see this article:
http://www.vosizneias.com/25272/2009/01/07/new-york-second-edition-of-min-hameitzar-by-rav-weissmandel-after-50-years-new-documents-zionism-did-little-to-help-jews-during-wwii/
(6) Michele, June 28, 2017 4:27 AM
SELFLESS BRAVERY
I just read your story and feel compelled to tell you that you have done such a wonderful thing to help people in need without worrying about your own safety. You are a true HERO. Thank you for saving all the Jews wanting to get to Israel. You are blessed.
(5) dave burock, June 28, 2017 12:28 AM
fantastic storie
Have to give these people, all of them, tremendous credit.
(4) Alex Hershtik, June 27, 2017 2:30 PM
G_D bless you Paul Kaminetzky. My mother, Olga, came to Israel on one of your boats. My mother is 93 years young and still lives in Israel (Petach Tikva).
(3) Boomie, June 27, 2017 2:03 PM
Why Have I never Heard Of This?
I feel cheated. I am the product of the yeshiva system; first modern, later yeshivish, and have never heard of this wonderful heroic model of a Jew before. Why was I not taught about Paul Kaye? At age 57 this should be a review, not a revelation. I am always interested in history,, especially Jewish history. The stories of these amazing men and women who risked their lives and often GAVE their lives to save other Jews makes me feel insignifant. We should have courses in yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs that celebrate the lives of these heroes and inspire today's children to look outside of themselves, to see how each one can help another Jew. Yes, the Bais Yaakov require the girls to chesed hours, and that is a tremendous lesson, but I think the personal stories of Jweish heros should also be a part of the curriculum in every yeshiva high school.
MESA, June 28, 2017 3:12 PM
Agreed. I was born and raised in yeshiva day school and I didn't know about Paul Kaye until today. I also didn't know about many of our other heroes until I was an adult. Even when I had to take Jewish History in high school, there was no mention of anything like this. There should be. This is one more way to teach our children to be proud Jews.
jeff Hoffman, February 21, 2018 12:42 AM
“4 Million Bullets” tells the inspiring, first-hand stories of international heroism, intrigue, and ingenuity that helped to ensure the creation the state of Israel.
Behind the creation of the state of Israel are dozens of stories of individual heroism, intrigue, and ingenuity – without which the nation would never have survived. “4 Million Bullets” tells these stories – many for the first time – in the words of the people who experienced them. Discover how everyday people from North America, South Africa, and Europe – young adults, former World War II soldiers, business people, Holocaust refugees, Jews and non-Jews – came together and defied nearly impossible odds in an effort to establish a nation for the Jewish people. www.squashhouse.net/4-million-bullets
(2) Shelly, June 27, 2017 2:02 PM
Yasher Koach
Paul, it is because of brave and selfless people like you that Jewish people continue to thrive. What would have happened if you didn't step up to the plate and say "let's go!"? Where would the thousands of Jews be today? Would they have even survived? Probably not. Reading this brought tears to my eyes and pride to my heart. Do people like you exist anymore? I remind myself every day that they do. I see them in the "Lone Soldiers" of the IDF. I see them in those who speak out in behalf of Israel and Jews even (especially) when it is unpopular and even dangerous. I have distant family members who went from the DP camps to Israel. Perhaps you were their captain? What a pleasant thought that is for me. I am a child of a Holocaust survivor (Auschwitz). Your bravery and "ahavat Yisroel" fills me with joy and hope. I wish you blessings that only someone as special and brave as you are deserve. Don't deny it, Paul. YOU ARE A TRUE HERO!!! Thank you!
(1) Malka, June 25, 2017 11:32 PM
Thank you for sharing this story!
I have been reading about the Israeli war of Independence and the history of Israel and this story is an example of the bravery and ahavos yisroal that helped create the Jewish State of Israel. Paul Kaye is a hero, thank you for loving and helping our people.