Galeb Ship

Galeb Ship was built in Genoa in 1938 by the name RAMB III and was part of a group of four ships made for the transport of tropical fruit. With the beginning of The Second World War, its initial purpose was changed, and Galeb Ship became an auxiliary cruiser of the Italian Royal Navy. During his stay in Benghazi in 1941, it was torpedoed in the bow by a British submarine and took the stern part of the ship to Sicily, from where it was brought to a shipyard near Trieste for overhaul. With the capitulation of Italy in 1943, it fell into the hands of Nazi Germany and changed its purpose again - it became a minelayer for the German Navy and was named Kiebitz. In that period, it laid over 5,000 mines in the Kvarner Gulf. During the Allied bombing of the city of Rijeka in 1944, the ship was hit in an air attack and sunk in the port of Rijeka. After a few years, it was removed and taken to the Pula shipyard for overhaul, and in 1952 it became a training ship of the Yugoslav Navy under the name Galeb and the floating residence of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito.

With the ship Galeb, Josip Broz Tito promoted the idea of the Non-Aligned Movement and it became a kind of symbol of the Movement. The Galeb ship became a museum-ship on which the mission of the Non-Aligned Movement, its importance, as well as the main actors of the movement were presented as an important factor that influenced many political-economic-cultural aspects of world history.

A story told by Kristina Pavec, curator