us-005578-irn516095
type: RecordSet
archival history: The medallion was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2001 by Joseph Rosenthal, the nephew of Paul Kaye.
biographical history: Paul Kaye (formerly Kaminetzky (?)) was born in 1927 in the Bronx in New York, NY, to an Orthodox Jewish family. He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1944 and served as a marine engineer. He was on his way to the Pacific theater when the war ended in 1945. He was discharged in 1946. He was working in a record store in New York in 1947 when he received a phone call asking him if he wanted to help his people. A clandestine meeting was arranged and Paul was recruited by Haganah, the paramilitary organization that later became the Israeli Defense Force, to join the Mossad L’Aliyah Bet, an organization formed by the Jewish leadership in Palestine in 1938 to coordinate illegal immigration efforts. He was told that men were needed to sail small boats between Cyprus and Palestine and warned that he could be arrested by the British for these illegal actions. Palestine was controlled by Great Britain under a United Nations mandate and the British severely restricted the number of people allowed to immigrate. Ship travel was the most common form of transport and thousands left Europe every year. Most of the ships were stopped by the British Navy before reaching Palestine and the passengers and crews were interned in detention camps on the nearby island of Cyprus. Paul went to Baltimore where he boarded the Tradewinds, a dilapidated former Coast Guard cutter, and sailed to Europe. After being refitted with bunks and other facilities in Lisbon, the ship left for Italy and picked up about 1500 illegal refugees, mostly Holocaust survivors, and sailed for Palestine. They soon were spotted by a British reconnaissance plane and surrounded by British warships. Renamed the Hatikvah, the ship was captured about fifty miles off the coast of Palestine on May 17, 1947. There were twenty-seven American crew members: the British arrested six, a couple escaped, and the rest managed to blend in with the passengers in order to be sent to Cyprus instead of a British prison in Palestine. As P…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Small, circular, metal, silver colored medallion with scalloped edges crafted from a coin that has been flattened and smoothed by hand. In the foreground is an etched image of a barbed wire fence with 3 gatehouses and a tall guard tower with Hebrew text below. In the upper left background is a ship with a smokestack emitting smoke with Hebrew text below; to the right flies an airplane and there are lines representing sun beams. The reverse has an etched 6 pointed Star of David with a triangular hashmark outline, 3 accent lines between the outer lower points, and English initials in the center. The border is outlined with triangular hashmarks. A date is etched across the top. There is a suspension ring inserted through a hole punched through the top. front, left center, engraved : Hatikvah (in Hebrew) front, lower center, engraved : Kafrisin (in Hebrew ) [Cyprus] reverse, etched : 18 | v 1947 [lines above, below v for roman numeral] back, center, engraved : J.R.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
date: 1947 May 18, 1947 May 18-1947 July 22
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: heb
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn516095
record resource extent: overall: Height: 0.875 inches (2.223 cm) | Width: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm) | Depth: 0.120 inches (0.305 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Small medal commissioned by Paul Kaye to memorialize the imprisonment of the crew and passengers of the illegal immigrant ship, Hatikvah, on May 18, 1947, after their capture at sea by the British on May 17 during a voyage to Palestine. It was carrying nearly 1500 Jewish refugees, mostly Holocaust survivors. The medal was made from a hand flattened Cyprian piaster coin by an artist, name unknown, that Paul met in the internment camp on Cyprus. It is etched with the names, Hatikvah and Cyprus, an image of the ship, and an image of the detention camp; the initials of Paul’s nephew, Joseph Rosenthal, are on the reverse. Paul was a 21 year old American recruited as a crew member for the Mossad L’Aliyah Bet which organized the illegal immigration of Jews into British controlled Palestine which had very strict immigration quotas. After being held on Cyprus and in a prison in Palestine, Paul escaped and continued his mission. Similar commemorative medallions made from coins were also created other refugee artists, such as Albert Dov Sigal, during their imprisonment in Cyprus.
title: Handcrafted commemorative coin medallion created for a US crew member on an illegal immigrant ship