Rav Shimon Schwab referenced the danger he experienced at sea in his sefer Iyun Tefillah
The rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 led to a wave of Jewish emigration from Germany. Until then, over a half a million Jews resided there; by the end of 1939, that figure had shrunk to about 200,000. As conditions progressively worsened, nearly 100,000 German Jews made it to the United States, some 50,000 to England, and an additional 100,000 to other Western European countries (many of whom fell victim to the Holocaust when those countries were occupied during World War II).
Another 55,000 were able to receive British Mandate immigration certificates to Palestine. On August 25, 1933, the Haavarah (transfer) Agreement was signed between representatives of the Jewish Agency and the Nazi government. Though this provision generated controversy at the time, it facilitated the safe passage of German Jews to Palestine together with some of their financial assets. German Jewish refugees established communities of their own in Yerushalayim (primarily in Rechavia), Tel Aviv, Haifa, and around the burgeoning Yishuv.
The emerging Yekkish (German) community in the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa soon sought a German rabbi. One of the candidates invited to audition for the position was Rav Shimon Schwab. Having grown up in Frankfurt and studied in Eastern Europe in the great yeshivos of Telz and Mir, he was serving as the district rabbi of Ichenhausen, Bavaria, and the surrounding villages.
The worsening situation had him seeking an escape route for his growing family. His attempt to open a yeshivah in 1934 lasted one day, as the local Nazi rabble rousers threatened violence. A rabbinical position serving yekkishe landsleit in the Holy Land sounded like a good prospect, so Rav Schwab set sail for Eretz Yisrael on September 16, 1935. Just one day earlier, the Reichstag had convened and passed the notorious Nuremberg Laws, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship and formalized their legal status as outsiders in their own country and society.
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