* Rudolph W. Patzert; Ferried Refugees to Palestine

Rudolph W. Patzert, 88, a sea captain who ferried Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine after World War II. Patzert was captain of the Paducah, one of 10 American ships that participated in the secret rescue mission from 1945 to 1949. The relocations to what is now Israel were opposed by the British and French governments, and Patzert and others had to break through a British blockade of Palestine to deliver the refugees. Forty years later, Patzert described his 1947 adventure in a book, “Running the Palestine Blockade.” His ship, a converted World War I gunboat and World War II training vessel, carried about 1,380 passengers and crew. When they landed in Palestine, they were immediately sent to Cyprus and held in tents and Quonset huts originally intended for German prisoners of war, prompting Patzert to describe his internment as “the hardest two years of my life.” After he returned home, Patzert worked as a newspaper typesetter in New York and Gary, Ind. But he spent most of his life at sea, working on cargo vessels and cruise liners in his youth and at age 59 taking command of a merchant marine ship carrying supplies to the U.S. military in South Vietnam. He also captained several oil-drilling vessels. Patzert, who was not Jewish, was recognized in 1997 by Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish refugees of the Holocaust. On Jan. 21 in Encinitas, Calif., of melanoma.