The SS Exodus 1947

On July 11, the SS Exodus, a massive ship left France for Palestine carrying over 4000 Holocaust survivors seeking refuge in Palestine, but lacking legal immigration certificates because they’d been living as “Displaced Persons” in German and Austrian camps. The ship’s captain, Ike Aronowicz, is a leader of the militant wing of the Haganah, who’ve been working to bring the 250,000 Jews still living in Displaced Person camps to Palestine by ship.

On July 18, British forces ceased the ship in international waters and attempted to board it. They were resisted by the Haganah, and 3 Jews were killed and 10 injured in the ensuing fight. Upon taking control of the ship, the British government determined that the emigrants were to be deported back to Europe, and so they steered the ship into Haifa port, where its passengers were transferred to 3 deportation ships, which left Haifa harbor on July 19 for France.

However, when the ships arrived in France on August 2, the French Government said it would only allow disembarkation of the passengers if it was voluntary. As such, Haganah agents encouraged all passengers to stay on board, and so the emigrants refused to disembark. In response, the British government decided to return the passengers to Germany.

Soon after, the ships were sailed to Germany, where the passengers were held in camps and screened for extremists. As they walked off the ship, many of the Jews, especially younger people, were shouting that the British troops were 'Hitler commandos', 'gentleman fascists', and 'sadists'. In retaliation for the SS Exodus incident, the militant Zionist groups Irgun and Lehi recently bombed the British Central Police Headquarters in Haifa. 10 people were killed and 54 injured, of which 33 were British. The entire matter has come to the attention of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) members and increased the sense of urgency about the situation facing Jews and Arabs in Palestine.

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*Based on information retrieved 11.14.2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus