SS Goya was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 refugee

Refugee

A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

 ship that carried hundreds of eastern European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

 refugees to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 in 1951. Most notably it carried several men who went on to play a significant role in the development of the New Zealand Muslim Association

New Zealand Muslim Association

New Zealand Muslim Association - the oldest Islamic institution in New Zealand. It was established in 1950. In 1959 it purchased a house in Ponsonby, central Auckland, and converted it into the first Islamic Centre in the country. In 1960 the NZMA invited Maulana Said Musa Patel from the Gujarat...

 including Mazhar Krasniqi

Mazhar Krasniqi

Mazhar Krasniqi , is a New Zealand Muslim community leader of Kosovar Albanian descent. He was the first president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand in 1979 and a human rights activist-Overview:...

 and Nazmi Mehmeti

Nazmi Mehmeti

Nazmi Mehmeti , also recorded as “Mehmetovitch” on the SS Goya, was an Albanian born on 25 March 1918 in Rechani, Macedonia, near Gostivar. He came to New Zealand in 1951 at the age of 33...

.

The ship departed Pireaus, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, and arrived in Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 on 1 May 1951. Initially all the refugees were interned for three months at the former Prisoner of War camp in the small rural settlement of Pahiatua

Pahiatua

Pahiatua is a rural service town in the south-eastern North Island of New Zealand with an urban and rural population of over 4,000. It is between Masterton and Woodville on State Highway 2 and the Wairarapa Line railway, north of Masterton and east of Palmerston North...

 to learn English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 law and customs.

There were over 900 refugees on board, mostly ethnic Greeks from Romania but also Estonians, Yugoslavs and other eastern Europeans.