We are located at the corner of Jaffa Street and Patria Street. Patria Street is named after a French passenger ship that sailed from Marseille to Haifa until 1940. With the fall of France to Nazi Germany, the ship was confiscated by the British in the port of Haifa. It was on this ship that the British authorities placed about one and a half thousand illegal Jewish immigrants who fled from the Nazi-captured Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark and the Benelux countries. These refugees arrived in Haifa on three Greek ships chartered by the Jewish leadership to rescue Jews, but the British leadership of Palestine, fearing Arab unrest, significantly restricted the entry of Jews into Eretz Israel and was going to ferry refugees to the Mauritius Islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean. After negotiations, requests and pleas were unsuccessful, the leaders of the Jewish leadership of Palestine decided to disable the ship. Meir Mordor (later the first director of Israel's military industry), disguised as a technician, carried a kilogram of explosives on board the ship. Despite the low-power charge, the explosion tore the hull plating and the ship began to roll quickly on its side. Within fifteen minutes, Patria sank to the bottom of the Haifa Bay. British officers did their best to save the drowning, but the losses were enormous. For several months, the divers raised the bodies of the drowned. To date, the exact number of victims has not been established. According to various estimates, it ranged from 250 to 300 people. Translated with Google Translate