Hans Wendel was among the victims of a scandal-ridden bomb explosion on the former cargo ship “Patria”, which had originally been owned by France and had been seized by the British authorities in the port of Haifa after the outbreak of war.

What is known about Hans Richard Wendel? He was born in Chemnitz, the son of the merchant Moritz Wendel. His father, who had lived in Chemnitz since 1890, held a senior position at the firm Gebrüder Becker from July 1901 to April 1934. Most recently, he served on the board of directors of Eduard Becker Söhne Aktiengesellschaft. Moritz Wendel had been married to Hertha Kirsch since February 1905. The couple also had two other children: Marga and
Erich. Following the birth of their third child, the family moved into the house at 3 Heinrich-Beck-Straße.

Moritz Wendel died on 9 June 1939 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Altendorf district. By this time, the children were no longer living in Chemnitz. Erich Wendel had emigrated to South Africa.

Marga Wendel, who had been married to the actor and staunch Zionist Erich Moral since February 1930, had already emigrated to Palestine with her husband in 1934. In a letter published in the *Jüdische Zeitung für Mittelsachsen*, he recounted his impressions of life in Palestine. The couple lived in Haifa from then on. Hertha Wendel also emigrated to South Africa in October 1939 and lived in Cape Town, where her son Erich had settled.

Hans, who had attended the Realgymnasium until Easter 1931, subsequently began vocational training. He became involved at an early age in the
Jewish Scout Association, which had been founded in 1928. For a considerable period, he was leader of the Chemnitz district group. From 1934 onwards, Hans Wendel supported the work of the newly founded Jewish Scout Association, Makkabi Hazair. During this time, he decided to emigrate to Palestine. He joined a group led by Jekutiel Federmann with the aim of learning an agricultural or craft trade.

In March 1936, Hans Wendel became the new South-West regional leader of the JPD Makkabi Hazair. A few months later, he became a member of the national executive in Berlin. In the spring of 1939, he was in Spreenhagen, where the Gut Winkel retraining centre was located. He later lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg. On 23 January 1940, Hans Wendel married the photographer Ingetraut Schaefer, who was ten years his junior, in Berlin. Hans Wendel, usually known simply as ‘HaWe’, was appointed second transport manager, tasked with organising the refugee transports via the Black Sea route to Haifa.

The operation began on 16 August 1940. At the Danube port of Bratislava, the refugees were to be distributed amongst three passenger ships (the SS “Atlantic”, the SS “Pacific” and the SS “Milos”). The Wendels were on board the SS ‘Pacific’. By 5 November 1940, the passengers of the SS ‘Pacific’ and the SS ‘Milos’ had been intercepted by the Royal Navy off Haifa and transferred to the ‘Patria’. Two weeks later, the SS ‘Atlantic’ arrived in Haifa. To prevent the refugees from being deported to Mauritius, Hans Wendel was tasked by the Haganah, a paramilitary underground organisation in Palestine, with rendering the ship unseaworthy by means of a bomb explosion. Wendel undertook to place the bomb – which was not a time bomb – in the bow of the ship. At around 9 am on 25 November 1940, the bomb exploded in the engine room. However, the Haganah had miscalculated the amount of explosives. The “Patria” sank within 15 minutes. Wendel had no chance of survival.

Of the 1,771 people crammed onto the “Patria”, around 200 lost their lives. Hans Wendel was listed as one of the missing
passengers for some time. Inge Wendel and her mother, Marie Schaefer, survived the explosion and were transferred to the Atlith quarantine and internment camp near Haifa.