SS Exodus

Exodus 1947 after British takeover (note damage to makeshift barricades). Banner says: "Haganah Ship Exodus 1947".
General characteristics as USS President Warfield
Tonnage	1,814 t
Length	320 ft (98 m)
Beam	56 ft 6 in (17.22 m)
Draught	18 ft 6 in (5.64 m)
Speed	15 kn (28 km/h)
Troops	400
Complement	70

Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried Jewish emigrants, that left France on July 11, 1947, with the intent of taking its passengers to the British mandate for Palestine. Most of the emigrants were Holocaust survivor refugees, who had no legal immigration certificates to Palestine. Following wide media coverage, the British Royal Navy seized the ship, and deported all its passengers back to Europe.

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

Early history

The ship was built in 1927 by Pusey and Jones Corp., Wilmington, Delaware, for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. Initially named President Warfield, for Baltimore Steam Packet Company president S. Davies Warfield (the uncle of the Duchess of Windsor), it carried passengers and freight on the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore, Maryland and Norfolk, Virginia from 1928 until July 12, 1942, when the ship was acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) and converted to a transport craft for the British Ministry of War Transport.

Manned by a British merchant crew led by Capt. J. R. Williams, it departed St. John’s, Newfoundland on September 21, 1942, along with other small passenger steamers bound for the United Kingdom. Attacked by a German submarine 800 nautical miles (1,500 km) west of Ireland on September 25, the ship evaded one torpedo, and, after the scattering of its convoy, reached Belfast, Northern Ireland. In Britain, it served as a barracks and training ship on the River Torridge at Instow.

President Warfield enroute to Europe in 1947, where she would be renamed Exodus 1947

Returned by Britain, it joined the U.S. Navy as President Warfield on May 21, 1944. In July it served as a station and accommodations ship at Omaha Beach at Normandy. Following duty in England and on the Seine River, it arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, July 25, 1945, and left active Navy service September 13. President Warfield was struck from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register on October 11 and returned to the War Shipping Administration on November 14.

Voyage history

On November 9, 1946 the WSA sold President Warfield to the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C., who were acting as an agent of the Jewish political group Haganah. The ship eventually ended up with Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet—the underground Jewish organization in Palestine intent on helping underground Jewish immigrants enter Palestine. It was renamed Exodus 1947 after the biblical Jewish exodus from Egypt to Canaan.

The ship was deliberately chosen because of its derelict condition. It was risky to put passengers on it, but 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. The President Warfield left Baltimore February 25, 1947 and headed for the Mediterranean. With Palmach (Haganah's military wing) skipper Ike Aronowicz as captain, and supervised by Haganah commissioner Yossi Harel as the operation's commander, it sailed under false orders and left at night with 4,515 passengers from the port of Sète, France, on July 11, 1947, and arrived at Palestine's shores on July 18. The British Royal Navy cruiser Ajax and a convoy of destroyers trailed the ship from very early in its voyage, and finally boarded it some 20 nautical miles (40 km) from shore. The Exodus had been purposely refitted to make boarding impossible with barriers and barbed wire along the top decks and steam hoses hooked to the boilers fitted for defense. Attempts had been made by the British to keep the Exodus from leaving France and interception at sea was decided upon as the ship was unseaworthy and presented the continual danger of sinking. The boarding by the British was difficult and had to be managed from the bridges of the destroyers and was challenged by the passengers and Haganah members on board. Two passengers and one of the crew, 1st mate William Bernstein, a U.S. sailor from San Francisco, died as a result of bludgeoning and several dozen others were injured before the ship was taken over.

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.

Not only should it clearly establish the principle of REFOULEMENT as applies to a complete shipload of immigrants, but it will be most discouraging to the organisers of this traffic if the immigrants... end up by returning whence they came.

The damaged former President Warfield remained moored to a breakwater at Haifa harbour as a derelict until it burned to the waterline August 26, 1952. Later towed to Shemen Beach, Haifa, it was raised in 1963 and scrapped by an Italian firm.

The Exodus, formerly President Warfield, arriving at Haifa (British Admiralty photo)

Return to France

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. Foreign Secretary Bevin insisted that the French get their ship back as well as its passengers.

When the ships arrived at Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles 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-hour hunger strike, refusing to cooperate with the British authorities.

Meier Schwarz managed to sneak into the Ocean Vigour as an Haganah officer.

But the British government had no intention of backing down or relaxing its policy.

During this time, Jewish agents continually goaded the passengers to make trouble for the British and blame them for all sorts of imagined insults. They skillfully managed media coverage of the contest of wills and the British became pressed to find a solution. The matter also came to the attention of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) members who had been deliberating in Geneva. After three weeks, during which the prisoners on the ships held steady in difficult conditions, rejecting offers of alternative destinations, the ships were sailed to Hamburg, Germany, which was then in the British occupation zone.

Operation Oasis

Documents released from the British archives show that after much soul-searching, the British concluded that the only place they could send the Jews was to the British-controlled zone of post-war Germany, where the Jews could be placed in camps and screened for extremists; the decision to land the Jews in Germany had been made because it was the only suitable territory under British control that could handle so many people at short notice.

Britain's impossible position was later summed up by John Coulson, a diplomat at the British Embassy in Paris by a coded warning to the Foreign Office in London in August 1947 in which he said:

“You will realize that an announcement of decision to send immigrants back to Germany will produce violent hostile outburst in the press.” He pointed out: "The pros and cons of keeping the Exodus immigrants in camps ... there is one point that should be kept in mind. Our opponents in France, and I dare say in other countries, have made great play with the fact that these immigrants were being kept behind barbed wire, in concentration camps and guarded by Germans."

"If we decide it is convenient not to keep them in camps any longer, I suggest that we should make some play that we are releasing them from all restraint of this kind in accordance with their wishes and that they were only put in such accommodation for the preliminary necessities of screening and maintenance."

Disembarkation

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

The Exodus 1947 passengers were successfully taken off the vessels in Germany. Relations between the British personnel on the ships and the passengers was said by the passengers, afterwards, to have been mostly amicable, Everyone realized there was going to be trouble at the forced disembarkation before hand and some of the Jewish passengers even apologized in advance for this. A number were injured in confrontations with British troops that involved the use of batons and fire hoses. The would-be immigrants 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.

By the time they had docked at Hamburg, many of the refugees were in a defiant mood. When they first set out on their historic quest, they had believed they were days away from arriving at a Jewish homeland. The prospect of being sent to camps in Germany represented a pitiful failure of their original mission and for many of the Holocaust survivors, it was almost impossible to bear. The British had identified one of the ships, the Runnymede Park, as the vessel most likely to cause them 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 officer in charge of the operation, Lt. Col. Gregson, later gave a very frank assessment of the success of the storming of the ship, which, according to a secret minute, left up to 33 Jews, including four women, injured in the fighting. Sixty-eight Jews were held in custody to be put on trial for unruly behaviour. Only three soldiers were hurt. But it could have been a lot worse. Gregson later admitted that he had considered using tear gas against the immigrants. He concluded:

"The Jew is liable to panic and 800-900 Jews fighting to get up a stairway to escape tear smoke could have produced a deplorable business." He added: "It is a very frightening thing to go into the hold full of yelling maniacs when outnumbered six or eight to one." Describing the assault, the officer wrote to his superiors: "After a very short pause, with a lot of yelling and female screams, every available weapon up to a biscuit and bulks of timber was hurled at the soldiers. They withstood it admirably and very stoically till the Jews assaulted and in the first rush several soldiers were downed with half a dozen Jews on top kicking and tearing ... No other troops could have done it as well and as humanely as these British ones did." He concluded: "It should be borne in mind that the guiding factor in most of the actions of the Jews is to gain the sympathy of the world press."

One of the official observers who witnessed the violence was Dr. Noah Barou, secretary of the British section of the World Jewish Congress, who had 35 years experience of reporting. He gave the Jewish side of the fighting.

He described young soldiers beating Holocaust survivors as a "terrible mental picture".

"They went into the operation as a football match ... and it seemed evident that they had not had it explained to them that they were dealing with people who had suffered a lot and who are resisting in accordance with their convictions." He noted: "People were usually hit in the stomach and this in my opinion explains that many people who did not show any signs of injury were staggering and moving very slowly along the staircase giving the impression that they were half-starved and beaten up."

"When the people walked off the ship, many of them, especially younger people, were shouting to the troops 'Hitler commandos', 'gentleman fascists', 'sadists'."

Dr Barou was "especially impressed" by one young girl who "came to the top of the stairs and shouted to the soldiers, 'I am from Dachau.' And when they did not react she shouted 'Hitler commandos'."

While the British could find no evidence of excessive force, they conceded that in one case a Jew "was dragged down the gangway by the feet with his head bumping on the wooden slats".

Security fears seemed justified after the Jews were removed when homemade bomb with a timed fuse was found on the Empire Rival. It was apparently rigged to detonate after the Jews had been removed, the cables indicate."Bomb Found On Jewish Ship ."battle" Leaders Sent To Jail". Glasgow Herald. September 10, 1947. p. 5.

Camp conditions

At the camps, the treatment of the refugees caused an international outcry after it was claimed that the conditions could be likened to German concentration camps.

Dr Barou was once again on hand to witness events. He reported that conditions at Camp Poppendorf were poor and claimed that it was being run by a German camp commandant. That was denied by the British.

It turned out that Barou's reports had been only partially accurate. There was no German commandant or guards but there were German staff carrying out duties inside the camp, in accordance with the standard British military practice of using locally-employed civilians for non-security related duties.

But the Jewish allegations of cruel and insensitive treatment would not go away and, on 6 October 1947, the Foreign Office sent a telegram to the British commanders in the region demanding to know whether the camps really were surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by German staff.

Final destination

A telegram written by Jewish leaders of the camps on 20 October 1947 makes clear the wishes and determination of the refugees to find a home in Palestine.

"Nothing will deter us from Palestine. Which jail we go to is up to you (the British). We did not ask you to reduce our rations; we did not ask you to put us in Poppendorf and Am Stau."

The would-be immigrants to Palestine were housed in Nissen huts and tents at Poppendorf and Am Stau (near Lübeck) but inclement weather made the tentage 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 into the U.S. zone via which they reached Palestine before 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 and were detained without trial in prison camps on Cyprus. Britain continued to hold the detainees in Cyprus until January 1949 when it formally recognized the State of Israel and all surviving passengers made aliyah.

Historical importance

The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine also covered the events. Some of its members were even present at Haifa port when the emigrants were removed from their ship onto the deportation ships, and later commented that this strong image helped them press for an immediate solution for Jewish immigration and the question of Palestine.

The ship's ordeals were widely covered by international media, and caused the British government much public embarrassment, especially after the refugees were forced to disembark in Germany.

The resting place of the Exodus

After the history making voyage 1947, the Exodus, as many of the Aliyah Bet ships were, was tied up in Haifa harbor and forgotten. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 brought massive immigration of European Jewish refugees from the Displaced Persons camps into Israel. Almost simultaneously, 600,000 Jews arrived in the new state from Arab countries, where mass expulsions were being enacted. There was little time and money to focus on the meaning of the Exodus. Abba Koushi, the Mayor of Haifa, proposed in 1950 that the "Ship that Launched a Nation" should be restored and converted into a floating museum of the Aliyah Bet—the story of the clandestine or the illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. During the process of restoring the ship that had been left decaying in the harbor, a mysterious accident occurred and the Exodus burned to the waterline. The hulk was towed and scuttled north of the Kishon River near Shemen Beach. In 1964 a salvage effort was made to raise her iron hull for scrap metal. The effort failed and she sank once again. In 1974, again an effort was made to raise the remains of the Exodus for salvage. The remains were refloated and were being towed toward the Kishon River when she sank again. Parts of the Exodus's hull remained visible as a home for fish and fisherman until the mid 2000s. Without fanfare or ceremony, the city of Haifa built its modern container ship quay extensions, enlarging the Port of Haifa (32°49′12″N 35°00′16″E), on top of the remains of the Exodus. The quay area where the remains of the Exodus are buried is a security zone and is not accessible today.

Historical markers or plaques exist for the Exodus in France, Germany, Italy and the United States. There are no memorials or markers specific to the Exodus in Israel.

Cultural impact

• In 1958, the book Exodus by Leon Uris, based partly on the story of the ship, was published, though the ship Exodus in the book is not the same but a smaller one and the "real" Exodus has been renamed.
• In 1960, the film Exodus directed by Otto Preminger and starring Paul Newman, based on the above novel, was released.
• In 1997, the documentary film, Exodus 1947, directed by Elizabeth Rodgers and Robby Henson and narrated by Morley Safer, was broadcast nationally in the U.S. on PBS television.

See also

• Patria disaster
• SS Struma
• Antoinette Feuerwerker
• David Feuerwerker
• Rose Warfman
• Underground to Palestine
• John Stanley Grauel

References

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

Further reading

English language

• Bell, J. Bowyer (1977). Terror out of Zion. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 312-79205-0. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
• Bethell, Nicholas (1979). The Palestine Triangle. London: André Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-97069-X.
• Gruber, Ruth (1999). Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-3154-8. OCLC 40954236.
• Halamish, Aviva (1998). The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine. London: Vallentine Mitchell. ISBN 0-85303-347-1. OCLC 60166078.
• Hochstein, Joseph M. (1999). The Jews' Secret Fleet. Jerusalem: Gefen. ISBN 965-229-023-8. OCLC 19030133. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Holly, David C. (1995). Exodus 1947. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-367-2. OCLC 31375792.
• Zertal, Idith (1998). From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21578-8.

Other languages

• Fahlbusch, Jan Henrik (1999). Pöppendorf statt Palästina: Zwangsaufenthalt der Passagiere der "Exodus 1947" in Lübeck : Dokumentation einer Ausstellung (in German). Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz. ISBN 3-933374-29-4. OCLC 50638651. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Exodus1947.com PBS Documentary Film focusing on the secret American involvement, narrated by Morley Safer
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Ruth Gruber from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• exodus1947.org Hebrew website dedicated to the ship. Includes images and recordings.
• Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia - Exodus 1947
• Pöppendorf instead of Palestine - Online Exhibition in German with an English translation on internment of the Exodus 1947 passengers in North Germany
• PresidentWarfield.com English-language website dedicated to the President Warfield/Exodus
• [1] Documents show UK post-World War II dilemma over Jewish refugees AP News
• [2] Public radio documentary website
• [3] Hebrew-English website dedicated to the history of the Palyam and the Aliyah Bet
• [4] Hebrew-English website of the Palyam Aliyah Bet Org. story of Rev. John Stanley Grauel, secret Haganah operative on the Exodus