Bidspirit auction | (PHOTOGRAPHY). LEO LIEB. S.S. SERPA

(PHOTOGRAPHY). LEO LIEB. S.S. SERPA PINTO (as per inscription lower right). Silver gelatin photograph. Photographer’s stamp on verso. Framed.   Minimal cracking. 10 x 13 inches (25 x 33 cm). New York, 25th September 1941.     The Portuguese ship, the “Serpa Pinto” remains dear in the memories of thousands of refugees. Known as the Navio da Amizade (“friendship ship, ”) she transported precious cargo across dangerous seas as doors rapidly closed for Jews seeking to flee Europe.     Most notably, just three months prior to this photograph, the Serpa Pinto carried to safety a married couple who grew to become internationally loved…     “When the Portuguese liner Serpa Pinto weighed anchor in Lisbon on June 12, 1941 (17th Sivan) and set sail across the Atlantic Ocean, who on board could have guessed that one of the most important pages of Jewish history was in the process of being written? Eleven days later, on June 23, (28th Sivan), Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, son-in-law and future successor of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and his wife, Chaya Mushka, disembarked from the ship in Staten Island, New York, together with hundreds of other refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. For the Chabad community all over the world, the 28th of Sivan became a special occasion for rejoicing…signif[ying] a turning point in the revival of Judaism in the United States and the entire world.” See www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/2623573/jewish/The-Story-of-the-Serpa-Pinto.htm     This photograph appeared in the PM Daily New York newspaper on 25th September, 1941 and has not been publicly issued since.     The photographer (Morris) Leo Lieb (1909–2001), lived at 282 Mott Street and was employed as a staff photographer for the PM Daily newspaper. PM was a liberal-leaning daily newspaper published in New York City by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948 and financed by Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III.     The present photograph depicts children on board the SS Serpa Pinto, a Portuguese ship, secured by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Friends Service Committee, with help from the Joint Distribution Committee in Lisbon, Portugal. Most of the children were Jewish refugees, the majority unaccompanied. The ship arrived in New York harbor on September 24, 1941 and the photograph ran the following day in the PM Daily NY newspaper.