EXODUS 1947, THE SHIP THAT LAUNCHED A NATION

Exodus 1947

Today, The Grandma has been at home. She has decided to read about Exodus 1947, the ship that leave Setè carrying 4,500 Jewish immigrants from France to British Mandatory Palestine on a day like today in 1947.

Last century was terrible with two World Wars and lots of internal wars that provoked lots of immigrants and refugees. This is one of these terrible stories that demonstated the human struggled and the great resilience of a nation to survive.

Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried 4,500 Jewish immigrants from France to British Mandatory Palestine on July 11, 1947.

Most were Holocaust survivors who had no legal immigration certificates for Palestine. The ship was boarded by the British in international waters; three of those on board were killed and ten injured. The ship was taken to Haifa where ships were waiting to return the Jews to refugee camps in Europe.

The ship was formerly the packet steamer SS President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. From the ship's launch in 1928 until 1942, it carried passengers and freight between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. During World War II, it served both the UK and the United States Navy; for the latter as USS President Warfield (IX-169).

After World War II, some 250,000 European Jews were living in Displaced Persons camps within Germany and Austria under harsh conditions. Zionist organizations began organizing an underground network known as the Brichah, flight in Hebrew, which moved thousands of Jews from the camps to ports on the Mediterranean Sea where ships took them to Palestine.

This was part of the Aliyah Bet immigration scheme that commenced after the war. At first many made their way to Palestine on their own. Later, they received financial and other support from sympathizers around the world. The boats were largely staffed by volunteers from the United States, Canada and Latin America. Over 100,000 people tried to illegally immigrate to Palestine, as part of Aliyah Bet.

More information: CIE

The British opposed large-scale immigration. Displaced person camps run by American, French and Italian officials often turned a blind eye to the situation, with only British officials restricting movement in and out of their camps.

In 1945, the British reaffirmed the pre-war policy restricting Jewish immigration which had been put in place following the influx of a quarter of a million Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.

The British prepared a massive naval and military force to turn back the refugees.

Exodus 1947

Over half of 142 voyages were stopped by British patrols, and most intercepted immigrants were sent to internment camps in Cyprus, the Atlit detention camp in Palestine, and to Mauritius. About 50,000 people ended up in camps, more than 1,600 drowned at sea, and only a few thousand reached Palestine.

Of the 64 vessels that sailed in the Aliya Bet, Exodus 1947 was the largest, carrying 4,515 passengers – the largest-ever number of illegal immigrants to Palestine. Its name and story received a lot of international attention, thanks in no small part to dispatches from American journalist Ruth Gruber. The incident took place near the end of Aliyah Bet and towards the end of the British mandate, after which Britain withdrew its forces and the state of Israel was established.

Historians say Exodus 1947 helped unify the Jewish community of Palestine and the Holocaust-survivor refugees in Europe as well as significantly deepening international sympathy for the plight of Holocaust survivors and rallying support for the idea of a Jewish state.

On November 9, 1946, using the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C. as its agent, the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah bought President Warfield from the WSA and transferred control of it to Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet, the branch of the Haganah that organized Aliyah Bet activities.

The British had recently announced that they would begin deporting illegal immigrants to Cyprus rather than Atlit, whereupon Aliyah Bet organizers decided immigrants should begin resisting capture. The President Warfield was well-suited for that, because it was fast, sturdy enough to not easily overturn, made of steel which would help it withstand ramming, and was taller than the British destroyers which would be trying to board it.

More information: Jewish Virtual Library

The ship was also chosen because of its derelict condition. It was risky to put passengers on it and it was felt this would compel the British to let it pass blockade because of this danger or put the British in a bad light internationally.

All illegal immigration ships were renamed with Hebrew names designed to inspire and rally the Jews of Palestine and Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet renamed President Warfield to Exodus 1947 and, in Hebrew, Yetz'iat Tasbaz, or Yetzi'at Eiropa Tashaz, Flight from Europe 5707 after the biblical Jewish exodus from Egypt to Canaan.

The name was proposed by Israeli politician and military figure Moshe Sneh, who at the time headed illegal immigration for the Jewish Agency, and was later described by Israel's second Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, then Shertok, as a stroke of genius, a name which by itself, says more than anything which has ever been written about it.

Exodus 1947

For months, teams of Palestinians and Americans worked on the Exodus 1947 with the goal of making it harder for the British to take over the ship.

Metal pipes, designed to spray out steam and boiling oil, were installed around the ship's perimeter.

Lower decks were covered in nets and barbed wire. The machine room, steam room, wheel house and radio room were covered in wire and reinforced to prevent entry by British soldiers.

The President Warfield left Baltimore February 25, 1947, and headed for the Mediterranean.

According to Israeli historian Aviva Halamish, the Exodus 1947 was never meant to sneak out toward the shores of Palestine, but rather to burst openly through the blockade, by dodging and swiftly nipping through, beaching herself on a sand bank and letting off her cargo of immigrants at the beach. The ship was too large and unusual to go unnoticed.

Indeed, even as people began boarding the ship at the port of Sète near Montpellier, a British RAF plane was circling overhead and a British Royal Navy warship was waiting a short distance out at sea.

The Exodus 1947 left Sète sometime between two and four in the morning of July 11, 1947 flying a Honduran flag and claiming to be headed for Istanbul.

It was carrying 4,515 passengers including 1,600 men, 1,282 women, and 1,672 children and teenagers. Palmach (Haganah's military wing) skipper Ike Aronowicz was its captain and Haganah commissioner Yossi Harel was commander. The ship was manned by a crew of some 35 volunteers, mostly American Jews.

More information: i24 News

As she left the port, the Exodus was shadowed by the sloop HMS Mermaid and by RAF aircraft. Later, the Mermaid was relieved by the destroyer HMS Cheviot.

On the first evening of its voyage, the Exodus reported that a destroyer had tried to communicate with it but that it had not replied. Through its journey, the ship was followed by between one and five British destroyers as well as an airplane and a cruiser.

During the journey, the people on the Exodus prepared to be intercepted. The ship was divided into sections staffed by different groups and each went through practice resistance sessions.

The ship was loaded with enough supplies to last two weeks. Passengers were given cooked meals, hot drinks, soup, and one liter of drinking water daily. They did their washing in salt water. The ship had only 13 lavatories. A British military doctor, inspecting the ship after the battle, said that it was badly over-crowded, but that hygiene was satisfactory and the ship appeared well prepared to cope with casualties. Several babies were born during the week-long journey. One woman, Paula Abramowitz, died in childbirth. Her infant son died a few weeks later, in Haifa.

Exodus 1947

The British finally boarded the ship on 18 July, some 40 km from the Palestinian shore. Boarding it was difficult, and was challenged by the passengers and Haganah members on board.

One crew member, the second officer, an American Mahal volunteer, Bill Bernstein, died after being clubbed to death in the wheelhouse. Two passengers died of gunshot wounds. Two British sailors were treated afterwards for fractured scapula, and one for a head injury and lacerated ear. About ten Exodus passengers and crew were treated for mild injuries resulting from the boarding, and about 200 were treated for illnesses and maladies unrelated to it.

Due to the high profile of the Exodus 1947 emigration ship it was decided by the British government that the emigrants were to be deported back to France. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin suggested this and the request was relayed to General Sir Alan Cunningham, High Commissioner for Palestine, who agreed with the plan after consulting the Navy.

Before then, intercepted would-be immigrants were placed in internment camps on Cyprus, which was at the time a British colony. This new policy was meant to be a signal to both the Jewish community and the European countries which assisted immigration that whatever they sent to Palestine would be sent back to them.

The British sailed the commandeered ship into Haifa port, where its passengers were transferred to three more seaworthy deportation ships, Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival. The event was witnessed by members of UNSCOP. These ships left Haifa harbour on July 19 for Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles. Foreign Secretary Bevin insisted that the French get their ship back as well as its passengers.

More information: BESA Center

When the ships arrived at Port-de-Bouc on August 2, the French Government said it would allow disembarkation of the passengers only if it was voluntary on their part. Haganah agents, both on board the ships and using launches with loudspeakers, encouraged the passengers not to disembark.

Thus the emigrants refused to disembark and the French refused to cooperate with British attempts at forced disembarkation. This left the British with the best option of returning the passengers to Germany. Realizing that they were not bound for Cyprus, the emigrants conducted a 24-day hunger strike and refused to cooperate with the British authorities.

Media coverage of the contest of wills put pressure on the British to find a solution. The matter were reported to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) members who had been deliberating in Geneva. After three weeks, during which time the prisoners on the ships held steady in difficult conditions, rejecting offers of alternative destinations, the ships were sailed to Hamburg in Germany, which was then in the British occupation zone.

Exodus 1947

The British concluded that the only option was send the Jews to camps in the British-controlled zone of post-war Germany. They realized that returning them to camps in Germany would elicit a public outcry, but Germany was the only territory under their control that could immediately accommodate so many people.

The mission of bringing the Jewish refugees of the Exodus 1947 back to Germany was known in diplomatic and military circles as Operation Oasis.

On August 22 a Foreign Office cable warned diplomats that they should be ready to emphatically deny that the Jews would be housed in former concentration camps in Germany and that German guards would not be used to keep the Jews in the refugee camps. It further added that British guards would be withdrawn once the Jews were screened.

The Exodus 1947 passengers were successfully taken off the vessels in Germany. Relations between the British personnel on the ships and the passengers were afterwards said by the passengers to have been mostly amicable.

Everyone realized there was going to be trouble at the forced disembarkation and some of the Jewish passengers apologized in advance. A number were injured in confrontations with British troops that involved the use of batons and fire hoses. The passengers were sent back to DP camps in Am Stau near Lübeck and Pöppendorf. Although most of the women and children disembarked voluntarily, the men had to be carried off by force.

More information: The Jewish Star

The British identified one of the ships, the Runnymede Park, as the vessel most likely to cause trouble. A confidential report of the time noted: It was known that the Jews on the Runnymede Park were under the leadership of a young, capable and energetic fanatic, Morenci Miry Rosman, and throughout the operation it had been realised that this ship might give trouble.

One hundred military police and 200 soldiers of the Sherwood Foresters were ordered to board the ship and eject the Jewish immigrants.

The would-be immigrants to Palestine were housed in Nissen huts and tents at Poppendorf and Am Stau but inclement weather made the tents unsuitable. The DPs were then moved in November 1947 to Sengwarden near Wilhelmshaven and Emden.

For many of the illegal immigrants this was only a transit point as the Brichah managed to smuggle most of them into the U.S. zone, from where they again attempted to enter Palestine.

Most had successfully reached Palestine by the time of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

Of the 4,500 would-be immigrants to Palestine there were only 1,800 remaining in the two Exodus camps by April 1948.

Within a year, over half of the original Exodus 1947 passengers had made other attempts at emigrating to Palestine, which ended in detention in Cyprus. Britain continued to hold the detainees of the Cyprus internment camps until it formally recognized the State of Israel in January 1949, when they were transferred to Israel.

More information: The Guardian

Because I remember, I despair.

Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

Elie Wiesel