M/S "BERLIN", postage stamp issued by the Berlin German Post in 1955.

M/S BERLIN
Postage stamp issued by the Berlin German Post in 1955.

Transatlantic ship acquired by Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd) in 1954 from the Swedish company Svenska Amerika Linien (Swedish American Line), which had it built in 1924 at the Armstrong Whitworth shipyards in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England) and he had named it Gripsholm. 
Initially the Gripsholm covered the route between Gothenburg and New York. From 1942 to 1946, the United States Department of State chartered Gripsholm as an exchange and repatriation ship, carrying Japanese and German nationals to exchange points where she then picked up US and Canadian citizens (and British married to Americans or Canadians) to bring home to the USA and Canada. She also sailed under the auspices of the International Red Cross, with a Swedish captain and crew. The ship made 12 round trips, carrying a total of 27,712 repatriates. Exchanges took place at neutral ports; at Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique or Mormugoa (now Goa) in Portuguese India with the Japanese, and Stockholm or Lisbon with the Germans.
Her new owner, Norddeutscher Lloyd, used her as M/S Berlin, and in 1954 the ship resumed Canadian immigration voyages to Pier 21 in Halifax, making 33 immigrant voyages before the ship was retired and sold for scrap in 1966.

Traveler's collection.