XIV. B'riha - the Illegal Immigration (1945 - 1947)

This Chapter and You...

With the end of World War II, the full realization of the horrible destruction of European Jewry became fully known to the Jewish world. Its impact energized Jews everywhere to do everything in their power to save the surviving remnant. Never before in modern history were the Jewish People so unified and dedicated to a single purpose.

In Palestine, the Jewish community rapidly expanded its illegal immigration operation, using members of the Jewish Brigade stationed in Europe to create an "Underground Railway" to bring survivors to the coast and to ship them on tramp steamers in an attempt to break the British blockade of Palestine. Many made it to Palestine while others were caught and eventually interned in camps on Cyprus and Palestine or were shipped back to Europe, even Germany.

Thus have they made their way, through gateway and hall."

The old and the young, bent on reaching the ancient Wall..."

The world has not seen such a journey for nigh on to two thousand years..."

In swarming masses, in sorrow and agonized tears..."

Through Gateway and Hall, Benem Heller (Translated from Yiddish by S. Perla

And gathered them out of the lands From the East and from the West, From the north and from the sea.

Psalms, 107:3

Objectives:

1. When you arrive in Israel from Poland, you will know the situation the survivors found themselves in after the war. This chapter will help you better understand the refugee's desperate plight to reach Palestine.

2. You will better understand the reaction of the Jewish world to this plight, especially those living in Palestine.

Reading #1

This reading clearly defines the tragic situation that thousands of survivors found themselves in 1945. HOMELESS...AFRAID...POWERLESS...ALIEN...OUTCASTS. It was against this background that the B'riha took place.

No One Wanted Us Source: A Beggar in Jerusalem - by Elie Wiesel

Shortly after the conclusion of World War II the British government...(continued to enforce the White Paper and) imposed several impossible stipulations on the Jews of Palestine including their complete disarming, which would have left them powerless in the face of Arab neighboring countries. Concentration camps, reminiscent of Europe were set up in Cyprus by the British in order that they could continue to deny to the remnants of European Jewry, access to the Jewish homeland.

The other postwar period, the one in Europe, was different. Survivors we were, but we were allowed no victory. Fear followed us everywhere, fear preceded us. Fear of speaking up, fear of keeping quiet. Fear of opening our eyes, fear of shutting them. Fear of loving and being rejected or loved for the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all. Marked, possessed, we were neither fully alive nor fully dead. People didn't know how to handle us. We rejected charity. Pity filled us with disgust. We were beggars, unwanted everywhere of what they had done to us and to themselves. No wonder then that in time they came to reproach us for their own troubled consciences.

For years I spent the better part of my days in cold police stations. Like all aliens I had to ask for all kinds of authorizations for all kinds of purposes: residence permits, study permits, travel permits. Not a week passed without new forms to fill in, new humiliations. Survival had become a mistake, a burden. No one wanted us. Under British Mandate and still engaged in its struggle for national liberation, Palestine kept its gates closed. The American government carefully guarded its parsimonious quota system. Full of compassion, some liberal countries helped us seek refuge elsewhere, anywhere, on shores as distant as possible. We were treated as intruders if not outcasts. The victors could not face us; we were living proof of their complicity. As for the neutrals, they naturally remained neutral. Unconcerned.

Questions:

1. Which countries and peoples of the world is Wiesel referring to in paragraph #1 when he writes, "unwanted everywhere, condemned to exile and reminding strangers everywhere of what they had done to us and to themselves. No wonder then that in time they came to reproach us for their own troubled consciences."

2. At the end of World War II why couldn't Holocaust survivors immediately go to Palestine?

3. The Zionist dream was two-fold, the normalization of the Jewish people as a nation and the ingathering of the exiles. Now that Israel has become the nation of the ingathering of our people, to what extent has the normalization of our people occurred? Does the title of the book give you a hint?

Reading #2

POLAND: The Starting Point

In January, 1945, after the Nazis had been cleared out of Poland, most of Polish Jewry realized that there was no future for Jews in Poland. Of the 3.5 million Jews who lived there before the war, 150,000 had fled east to Russia, and another 100,000 had survived the camps. After the war, Russia "repatriated" the Polish Jews back to Poland.

In spite of Jewish anti-Zionist propaganda mostly spread by the communists, the B'riha movement took strong roots. Yohanan Cohen, one of the earliest sh'lihim sent by Palestine, remembered the following:

"One day in the summer of 1945, I was told that an Italian boat would be landing near Tel Aviv that very night with a full load of illegal immigrants. After the "illegals" got safely ashore, the boat was to head back to Italy, with me aboard.

"After supper I went down to the beach. Before long, I saw light signals flashing from out at sea; they were answered with signals from shore. Almost before I knew it, the boat had appeared and was discharging its passengers - the illegal immigrants - under cover of darkness.

"I got on board. It was the Nettuno, with a diesel engine, weighing all of 60 tons and a crew of seven. After eight days at sea, I landed in Italy and was whisked off to Poland. Thus began the most important work of my life."

What started in Poland, spread to Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia (of the 80,000 Jews before the war, 14,000 survived), Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal and even the Arab countries.

When the British patrols ordered the Jews from kibbutzim and local towns to identify the spent and ragged travelers they were bearing ashore on their shoulders: "These? Why, they're our kinfolk."

Question:

Why was Poland the "starting point" for the B'riha?

Reading #3

This excerpt describes the plight of the refugees after the war and the efforts to get them to Palestine.

The Journey Home: The Plight Of The Survivors

"So you're still alive?" the neighbors asked. "We thought they'd taken care of you in the gas chambers."

Repatriation

Of the nearly 11,000,000 Jews who lived in Europe in 1939, less than 5,000,000 survived by 1945. The Allies believed that those who remained should return home and rebuild their lives. They were wrong. In almost every country in Europe, Jews were not welcomed home, and worse: attacks, robberies and pogroms convinced most Jews that they needed to look elsewhere to live. In the city of Kielce, the Jews returned to find that not only had their houses been appropriated, but they were not welcome. One night, on an evil pretense that the Jews had kidnapped a Christian child (to use his blood to bake Passover Matzos, the "Blood Libel"), the townspeople attacked and killed 42 Jews in yet another pogrom. Word spread throughout Europe. The message was clear: "Jews are not welcome here."

Kielce

Pogrom

Displaced persons (DP) camps were set up throughout Europe. At first, there was no distinction between displaced Jews and persons of other religions. Jews and Jew-haters found themselves face to face in the same camp. "Repatriation" sent Jews back to their homes with no understanding of what lay in wait for them. After intervention by Zionist and American Jewish organizations, Jews were placed in DP camps of their own, but the anti-Semitism did not end.

Mosad

During the war, thousands of Jews were brought to Palestine by Mosad L'Aliyah Bet, the Organization for Illegal Immigration, through bases in Switzerland and Turkey. They worked closely with the Jewish Agency and the Hagana, in spite of the 1939 White Paper issued by Great Britain, aimed at stopping that same illegal immigration.

After the war, in three years, over 250,000 Jews were to reach Palestine. The British called it "panic migration." The Czechs called it "unsuccessful repatriation." Americans called it "the underground railroad." Jews called it "B'riha", a Hebrew word meaning "flight' or "escape."

B'riha

B'riha started in Eastern Europe as the Germans were ousted by the invading Russians. An underground network was established by such people as Eliezer Lidovsky, Zivia Lubetkin, Itzhak "Antek" Cukierman and Abba Kovner. The next link was the Jewish Brigade, the military unit of Jews from Palestine who fought in Italy. These Jews from Palestine were so moved by the plight of the survivors, many stayed in Italy and organized Brigade bases to house the refugees, teach them Hebrew and skills, and get them ready for the boat ride to Palestine. Most of the Jews came from the DP camps run by the Americans and the British. Shaul Avigur organized B'riha, followed by Mordecai Surkiss, Ephraim Dekel and Meyer Sapir.

Questions:

1. Define D P Camp.

2. What was the "Mosad L'Aliyah Bet"?

3. What was the Jewish Brigade?

Reading #4

From Auschwitz to Israel: Exodus - by Leon Uris, Doubleday & Co., 1958

By the summer of 1945, Aliyah Bet agents of Jewish Palestine were working tirelessly to get surviving Jews out of the camps of Europe - gathering Jews and getting them out of Poland. A powerful force was working hard to keep them in Poland. The British government worked hard to encourage world allies to keep their borders closed to the survivors of the Holocaust. The Polish government issued an edict that all Jews were to remain in Poland. Jews were locked in a country that was their graveyard and locked out of Palestine.

They left Auschwitz in the middle of the night, striking off the main road - a tragic line of survivors streaming forth, with the strong holding up the weak and carrying the young. The straggling procession pushed over the fields of snow, driving their beaten bodies for six harrowing days. Then they drove themselves up into the biting winds of the Carpathian Mountains, with the Palestinians miraculously keeping them all alive and moving them on and on closer to the border.

Along the frontier other Aliyah Bet men worked feverishly to spread bribe money among the Polish guards, and as the ragged caravan pressed to the boundary the guards, with their pockets stuffed, turned their backs and the Jews poured through into Czechoslovakia.

On they marched through the freezing cold until they passed through Jablunkov Pass and assembled at the bottom, exhausted, feet bleeding, hungry, and in need of medical attention. A special train had been chartered by the Mossad Aliyah Bet. The escapees were taken aboard to waiting warmth, food, and attention. The first leg of the perilous journey was over.

When a Jew entered Palestine legally he surrendered his passport to the Aliyah Bet so that it could be used again. Five hundred such passports were distributed to the escapees from Auschwitz. In Vienna the travelers stopped for much-needed rest and medical attention. They were issued clothing in a giant restaging area that had been established by American Jews to help the European survivors.

In Italy, the next stop, the Mossad Aliyah Bet had the open cooperation of the public and the Italian officials. It was springtime when Dov's group of Auschwitz refugees embarked on another train that moved into the Austrian Alps and crossed into Italy through the Brenner Pass.

Question:

How do you determine who the true heroes of our people are?

Reading #5

Exodus 1947

The most famous of the illegal ships was the "Exodus - 1947". It was captured by the British outside Palestinian waters and eventually, the 4,500 passengers were returned to France and finally to Germany. The next three readings tell its story. This excerpt describes its full story.

The life of the ship began with the death of a man - Solomon Davies Warfield, owner of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. The ship was launched at high noon on Monday, February 6, 1928, by a bottle of spring water, champagne being illegal. After serving as a part of the Old Bay Line, she was enlisted into the naval war effort on May 23, 1940, in which she served until put up for sale on August 6, 1946. Although the scrap price was around $8,000., she was purchased by a local salvager, and then sold for $40,000. to the Chinese-American Industrial Company, Samuel Derecktor, President, "For use in China." And on July 9, 1947 began her tale.

On the coast of France between Marseilles and the Spanish border, the Mossad had purchased a number of villas. On that night of July 9th, there were 4,553 men, women and children who had travelled the land route from Poland and Germany, across France to the Mediterranean. They were Orthodox and conservative, moderates and socialists, the gentle and the fire-brands. Then, 70 trucks started arriving at the villas, transferring the human cargo to the port. All night they moved, showing their fake Columbian passports to sleepy-eyed French customs agents.

Then trouble. A British observation plane had spotted them. The word went to England. The British called the French, and the ship was under orders not to sail. Bribery didn't work. Parties and gifts to the local gendarmes seemed to be working. Bernie Marks snuck into the water, and swam to the pier to loosen the ropes. The engines pounded and she started to move. But there was no pilot boat, no tug boats. She had to maneuver 120 degrees in a port made for ships one tenth her size. Just about free, she stuck in the mud. Using all her horsepower, and then some, she finally managed to pull free. As they approached the breakwater, the H.M.S. Mermaid, a British man-of-war appeared. Bernie and Ben Foreman quickly rigged some wooded planks to look like coffins, to cover the holds in which 4,500 Jews lay hidden from view. It worked, but the Warfield was under the watch of the Royal Navy.

Organizing 4,500 people on a boat equipped to handle 300, was a gargantuan task. Besides the problems of cleanliness and meals, there was the weight problem. Any sudden shift of a hundred people could literally capsize the ship. HaShomer HaTzair members were assigned the duty of policing the crowd. Water was rationed. Even the passengers had jobs: helping in the commissary, cleaning the ship, teaching Hebrew and producing a handwritten newsletter.

Of the 4,515 refugees, 1,282 were women, 655 were children and 1,017 were teenagers. Most had known the concentration camps. Some had been in the partisans. Some had the tattoos from Dachau and Buchenwald, and some still wore the yellow star, but now with pride.

On Wednesday, July 16th, a woman died in childbirth. Her new-born son lived. In an evening ceremony, the body, wrapped in a handwoven flag of Zion, was lowered into the sea, accompanied by Hebrew prayers. The journey had claimed its first martyr.

By this time the armada of British ships had grown to 9, including a destroyer and a cruiser, added to by another three destroyers. Radio contact with "Kol Yisrael" was established. The ship's crew suggested changing it's name to Mordechai Anielewicz or Ha'Meri Ha'Ivri ( the Jewish Protest). The word came from Israel, succinct and dramatic: Yetziat Eiropa T'Sh'az, Exodus 1947.

By July 17th, another three destroyers and a frigate joined the armada. The British delivered a warning: "You are suspected of going to Palestine with illegal immigrants. It is forbidden. Please do not resist. We have superior forces here and in Palestine. If it becomes necessary, we will use force to board you, but you will have medical attention." The Exodus signaled back, "Thank you."

As the Exodus approached the coast, extensive preparations were taking place on board. Wire mesh was placed strategically, preventing any boarding party from getting a foothold. Oil was painted on the canvas. Secret hiding places were created for the 41 Haganah men, in case they needed to "disappear." On land, over 30,000 people had been gathered to create a huge diversion as the ship beached.

At 2:30 a.m., some 23 miles from the coast, the British made their move. Their ships turned on all their searchlights, and started moving closer, informing the Warfield that she would be towed to Haifa. Their lights picked up a banner hanging from the bridge, which read: Haganah Ship - Exodus 1947. The British set off firecrackers to scare the ship. The Exodus 1947 hung up a canvas with a painting of a woman holding a baby, with the words: "England, this is your enemy." On radio, a message was sent to the British saying that there were over 4,500 Jews on board who would not go back to concentration camps, even British ones.

Suddenly there was a sharp crunch, and then another, as two destroyers rammed themselves alongside the Exodus. Boarding parties of marines quickly came on the ship, with steel bludgeons and side arms. The fistfights were fierce, shots were fired, and the British were merciless. Just 43 soldiers from four ships made it on board, as the Exodus steered away from the surrounding ships. Shots killed two teenagers fresh from DP camps. Tear gas was lobbed at the crowds. Finally, there was no choice but to surrender to the British. The Exodus was ordered to proceed to Haifa.

The British sent medical staff to board the Exodus - 146 people were injured with club and gunshot wounds, 28 of them serious, including 17 women and a child.

The following message was delivered to the United Nations Committee (which was then meeting in Palestine):

"Gentlemen, at this time we make intercessions to you at assemblies in Eretz Yisrael. We request, in truth we demand, that you hear together testimony from the 4,500 Jews who are coming to Palestine in a few hours aboard the Haganah Exodus 1947. We remind you that no commission was called together to witness the death of six million Jews in Europe. This is your opportunity to fulfill the requirements of your declared justice in these matters. Witness if you will the heartache, the sorrow, the suffering and the utter brutality inflicted upon our people by the British. They have acted as the Nazis acted. They club and beat and shoot down in cold blood our women and children. These British are imprisoning our people in the same type camps in Cyprus as they suffered in Hitler's Europe. You have declared yourselves to guarantee equal opportunity to all who seek freedom. Their witness is, in truth, to the very thing that the United Nations had pledged itself to destroy."

At 4:00 p.m., on the eve of the Sabbath, the Exodus came alongside the dock in Haifa. Underwater explosions thudded near the ship to discourage underwater swimmers from sabotaging the ship. Near the ship were three British ships, each with wire cages built over their holds. They served as the "prison ships" which transported illegal immigrants to Cyprus. By 6:00 all the Jews had been placed on the three ships, ready for their journey to Cyprus.

The next day, the Jewish Agency was ordered to clean the ship. In went the workers, secretly members of the Haganah, and all 41 Haganah men who had been hiding on board, were smuggled off the ship, under the noses of the British sentries.

But the three British ships did not go to Cyprus. The British wanted to punish the French for allowing the illegal immigrants to leave France. They showed up at a French port. The French refused to force the Jews off the boats. About 60 sick and aged did come off, but the rest remained. For three weeks there was a stalemate. The Haganah said they would accept nothing less than a return to Palestine. The British threatened to send them all back to the British zone in Germany. The world was shocked. Hamburg prepared for their return. Again the British created a shock by announcing that they would have a "selection" to make sure that the Jews were indeed survivors, and not "plants" by the Haganah.

When the ships came to the dock, some Jews left peacefully. Most were dragged from the ships by 2,500 British marines, using their clubs liberally. At the Poppendorf and Amstau DP Camps, every Jew gave his name as one from the Bible, and all responded to the question of ancestry or country of birth, with the word "Palestine", without exception. The Haganah had given each of the 4,500 refugees a stamped certificate with the promise that they would one day see Palestine. It was sealed with the seal of the Palmach - the olive branch and the sword.

On September 7, 1948, a telegram from the vicinity of Poppendorf reached Mossad headquarters in Paris. It was dramatically simple: "We have sent off the last of the Exodus passengers from Germany...We have kept our promise."

Questions:

1. Why did the British want to stop illegal immigration to Palestine? (Answer not in this reading.)

2. What was the role of the Mosad before 1948?

 

Activities:

A. Imagine yourself waking up on board the Warfield, and you see that the ship's name has been changed to Haganah Ship Exodus 1947. Write a "diary entry" explaining your emotions.

B. Imagine yourself on board the Exodus, in the port of Haifa, as you are transferred to a boat supposedly going to Cyprus. Write a letter to a relative in Palestine explaining your feelings.

Reading # 6

This is an eyewitness account describing the events surrounding the "Exodus - 1947" on its arrival in Palestinian waters.

Source: Eyewitness to Jewish History - Tel Aviv Radio Broadcast, July 17, 1947, 10:00 p.m.

A radio program from Tel Aviv on July 17, 1947 gave a first-hand account of the tragedy of the Exodus 1947.

"The ship looked like a matchbox that had been splintered by a nutcracker."

A taut voice is heard broadcasting in a fine American accent to all of Palestine on Kol Yisrael (the Voice of Israel), the Haganah secret radio:

"This is the refugee ship, Exodus 1947. Before dawn today we were attacked by five British destroyers and one cruiser at a distance of seventeen miles from the shores of Palestine, in international waters. The assailants immediately opened fire, threw gas bombs, and rammed our ship from three directions. On our deck there are one dead, five dying, and one hundred twenty wounded. The resistance continued for more than three hours. Owing to the severe losses and the condition of the ship, which is in danger of sinking, we were compelled to sail in the direction of Haifa in order to save the 4,500 refugees on board from drowning."

Next morning, as the broadcast is being repeated at 7:30, the Jews of Palestine, still under the British mailed fist, spontaneously with one mind and heart closed store and shop, shut down factory and motor, and "struck" in protest against British terror and injustice. Later that day the port of Haifa became an armed camp. Gunners, paratroopers, sailors and marines in steel helmets and battledress, panzer cars, stun guns, and hospital stretchers - all were in readiness to meet the "invader."

Off on the horizon a black and broken hull of a boat was seen being tugged into port. About her, the lean and trim and proud British destroyers heaved and panted like hounds after a long chase concerning their prey.

As the vessel approached shore the words Haganah Ship - Exodus 1947 were seen on her side. Above her masts the blue and white flag of Zion floated in defiance. The appearance of the formidable "foe" which had challenged and dared the might of the British navy is described by an eyewitness:

"The ship looked like a matchbox, that had been splintered by a nutcracker. In the torn, square hole, as big as an open blitzed barn, we could see a muddle of bedding, possessions, plumbing, broken pipes, overflowing toilets, half-naked men, women looking for children. Cabins were bashed in; railings were ripped off; the lifesaving rafts were dangling at crazy angles."

Once long ago, before it was sold as scrap, the boat had carried Sunday excursion crowds on trips about Chesapeake Bay.

"Amidst the blare of the loudspeakers: `Come off quietly, women and children first,' the smashing of glass bottles which the refugees took along in which to keep their drinking water, and the explosion of depth bombs by the British to ward off underwater swimmers who might attach floating mines to damage the ships, the slow weary march of unloading began from the Exodus on to the prison boats."

Seen through the eyes of the same eyewitness:

"The pier began to take on the noise and smell and animal tragedy of a Chicago slaughterhouse. The cattle moved slowly down the tracks."

Was this the long awaited day of aliyah (immigration) to the Land of Promise - land of their dreams after the hideous Nazi nightmare, the living death of Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka? Was this the day which they hoped would reunite them with their families...? Were they to be... sent off to another concentration camp on the hot island of Cyprus? Were they to wait another two years behind barbed wire and under the ever-present scrutiny of armed guards and searchlights? Exodus 1947! It culminated a period of fifteen years of a mass exodus from Europe. Exodus 1947 - but another link in the sad history of the wandering of a persecuted people.

But these unfortunates lived to see the shores of their longed-for land. Their brethren on the Struma had not been as "lucky"...

THE STRUMA

767 Dead

Go back six years. December 16, 1941. It is the third black year of the war. The scene this time is the crescent harbor of Istanbul, Turkey. On the port side of a leaky boat, a large sign readable to the people of Istanbul and to the prim world diplomats in the Turkish capital read, "SAVE US." The cry came from almost eight hundred refugees jammed in a boat built for one hundred. The passengers on the Struma had sailed through waters infested with submarines and mines. They were fleeing blood-soaked Europe - for Palestine - anywhere. But they had no passports and visas. Now they were waiting for the world to open a door - to open its heart. But no. They were illegals. Turkey wouldn't let them land. Britain wouldn't let them go to Palestine. The diplomats of the world looked on: "Sorry. We can't let you in. Sorry! Sorry!"

A week later a tug was sent to pull the Struma out to sea. Five miles out the Struma split apart and went down. Only two passengers swam to shore. Only two remained alive. The others - 70 children, 269 women, 428 men - found their eternal rest on the bottom of the Bosporus. Had the Struma been an enemy ship, its passengers would have been interned. But they were Jews... DP's... illegal immigrants...

Questions:

1. How did the Jews of Palestine react to the British refusal to allow the passengers of the "Exodus - 1947" to disembark?

2. Describe the ship and its passengers?

3. Why were the Jews treated as "outcasts"? Reread the last paragraph.

Reading # 7

These eyewitness accounts describe what happened to the refugees when they arrived in France and then Germany.

The Resurrection of Israel, by Anny Latour

"EXODUS 1947"

The Abbe Glasberg:

Meantime, the three cage ships, under heavy escort by destroyers - in case of revolt, mass suicide, or other act of desperation - resumed their slow, abominable voyage. The Jews had given notice that they would not land on German soil except under duress and by force....

Metal Ships & Jazz

The Paris newspaper France-Soir, September 10th:

It is a matter of record: the most unshakable of the emigrants from the Exodus were dislodged from the sides of the cage ships with fire hoses and had to land in Hamburg and, under duress, join the convoy that would take them to a concentration camp. They had left to live free in the Promised Land; here they are behind the bars of the railroad cars, prisons on wheels.

The Abbe Glasberg resumes:

Unquestionably, the only way to disembark the recalcitrants was to drag or carry them off, and this is what was done. But why were women struck in the face, children dragged by the heels, their scratched faces dragging in the dust, metal clubs brought down on people's skulls?...

Jazz tunes were screeching from loudspeakers to cover the cries and groans of those who were being hit. The details could not bring to mind other, more atrocious scenes - the executions, the tortures, the hangings to the sound of music, or again, the battalions of forced labor leaving the camps in the pale dawn. Gaily, in good spirits!.. Antreten!

Railroad Cars, Barbed Wire, Watch Towers

And then piling them into railroad cars with barred windows and transporting them to the camps where yesterday's inhabitants find once again the barracks, the barbed wire, and the watch towers. They are being imprisoned for their own good; it is a question of protecting them, say the British supervisors. But when one asks, "Protect them against whom?" they have no answer. This was called Schutzhaft in Hitler's time.

Armorin was present in Hamburg during '*Operation Oasis":

The tram number 12, which goes from Lubeck to Herremwieck, now is passing by a tangle of rusty barbed wire for a hundred meters or so, lines of barbed-wire entanglements where soldiers are mounting guard, perched in watchtowers overlooking the camp. At night, searchlights are again lighted up and one can hear the baying of the dogs of the patrols. This is the camp at Amstau.

The Germans are glued to the windows, pretending indifference. However, some of the young fellows think it is funny. The Jews are back behind barbed wire....

"Operation Oasis" is ended. The Jews are stowed in Displaced Persons camps. Jean-Paul Nathan, special representative of La Terre Retrouvee, visited the Jews of the Exodus in the camp at Poppendorf, five kilometers from Lubeck:

Concentration Camps

Poppendorf resembles any other concentration camp. A triple row of barbed wire, two meters high, surrounds the camp. Sentries perched in the watchtowers keep a lookout, and at night, powerful beams of light are in play. All this paraphernalia just to prevent an impossible breakout by the nearly three thousand civilians, men, women, and children - many children.

Shame & Anger

We are now inside this city of barracks, we visitors, free men, who will shortly return by car to Hamburg and to Paris the day after. Our throats are dry, we are reluctant to make advances, we are reluctant to call upon the ragged refugees who look at our cameras with distrust. And yet how many things we would like to say to them! Our courage fails us, tears spring to our eyes, tears of shame and anger. You have sailed for more than sixty days, you have glimpsed the Promised Land, and here you are, a pitiful flock behind fences, in this Germany where you have suffered so much...

Questions:

1. How would you feel if you were a survivor of the Shoah, having made the arduous journey by boat to Palestine, being returned on prison ships and being forced into a Displaced Persons (former concentration camp) in Germany?

2. What do you think was the world's reaction to witnessing these events on newsreels and reading about it in newspapers? Would it have been different if TV news was covering the events every day and bringing it into your living room?

Reading #8

The struggle for Jewish independence exacted a heavy price. One could be hanged by the British just for bearing arms. The following is the story of several members of the Irgun who were hanged in the prison at Acre and of the Acre Jail break..

Excerpt from Pillar of Fire, by Yigal Lossin

Heavy gloom descended over Palestine as the British government started to carry out the death sentences imposed upon several underground fighters. Dov Gruner, an Irgun member, was hanged on April 16, 1947. after a long public and juridical struggle. Together with him to the gallows went Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi, and Eliezer Kashani, sentenced to death on charges of carrying weapons.

Twenty days after the hanging at Acre Prison. the Irgun staged a daring raid on the ancient fortress. Through the heart of this Arab city the raiders proceeded dressed in British army uniforms, to the roof of the Turkish Bath. The advance unit placed an explosive charge alongside the wall of the fortress and succeeded in blasting in it a gaping hole. The operation was coordinated in detail with the prisoners inside. Scores of them escaped to freedom through the break in the wall. The British searched intensively for the escapees; roadblocks were placed on all roads and vehicles searched. According to all observers, this was the most brilliant Irgun action. It was spoken of throughout the world and the British Government again found itself in a confounded situation.

The Acre Jail Break

On April 16, 1947, Dov Gruner, Dov Rosenbaum, Mordechai Alkoshi and Eliezer Kashani were executed by hanging, by the British at the Acre Jail. Their crimes had been various attacks on British Military Institutions. In reprisal, the Irgun planned a daring raid on the Jail on May 4, 1947.

Dov Cohen, in a British Captain's uniform, with two other Irgun members also dressed in British uniforms, lead the attack in a jeep filled with arms. As he approached Acre parts of the convoy shot off into different directions, and on different road because Acre was not only a totally Arab town, but also a town surrounded by British Military camps. Diversionary attacks were launched at the Military camps, and mines were planted on various roads.

A small quantity of explosives had been smuggled in to the prisoners of the Acre Jail. There was enough to blow up, from within the heavy iron bars separating the prisoners from the attackers by way of the Bath House. When the attackers reached the Bath House from the outside wall a bridge was made into the Acre Jail. What Napoleon had failed to do, this small band of Irgun commandos accomplished in broad daylight.

British reinforcements were rushed in from the many camps surrounding Acre, but none would reach their destination. At each turn land mines and hand grenades impeded their progress. Unfortunately, some British soldiers had gone bathing South of Acre and upon hearing the commotion, returned in time to do some damage. Additionally, one of the Irgun-Held Towers did not hear the recall signal and did not board their truck on time. Some injuries were sustained, and five Irgun raiders were captured.

Other than that, the raid was incredibly successful, and was one of the boldest strokes performed by the Irgun.

The story of the Irgun attack on the Acre Jail is portrayed in the film "Exodus."

Questions:

1. What was the Irgun? (You may not know this from this reading. Look it up.)

2. Some people have called Menachem Begin a terrorist for raids like this one. Explain your view on that statement.