May 4



BRITAIN:

Documents show UK post-WWII dilemma over Jewish refugees


Documents released Monday show how the British government tried to send
thousands of Palestine-bound Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide back
to postwar Germany without inflaming world opinion.

Could it be done? The answer was no. It was just two years after the end
of the war and the world was outraged by the systematic murder of 6
million Jews by the Nazis in what became known as the Holocaust.

Despite the best efforts of early spin doctors to portray the move in the
most sympathetic light, the decision to turn away the more than 4,500 Jews
on board the Exodus refugee ship turned into a humanitarian and public
relations debacle for Britain.

The story is detailed in more than 400 pages of formerly secret documents
at Britain's National Archives made available to the public on Monday.

The Jews aboard the Exodus were trying to enter Palestine illegally during
the tumultuous months in 1947 before the United Nations voted to create a
Jewish homeland in part of Palestine.

Britain was still governing Palestine and the British government felt it
had to keep the immigrants out to preserve the demographic balance between
Arab and Jew. But Britain did not have a safe place to send the Jews from
the Exodus, who were placed on three smaller British steamers.

After much agonizing, the British concluded that the only place they could
send the Jews was to the British-controlled zone of postwar Germany, where
the Jews could be placed in camps and screened for extremists.

After Germany, many of the passengers were eventually detained in military
camps in Cyprus along with other Jews deported from Palestine. When the
state of Israel was founded in 1948, the Exodus' passengers were able to
move there.

The Exodus' ordeal focused world attention on the British blockade of
Palestine and the plight of Jews fleeing Europe after World War II.

The documents show that diplomats and military officers knew that sending
Jews back to Germany and putting them in camps so soon after the Holocaust
would set off protests.

"These documents show the British perspective for the first time," said
Mark Dunton, contemporary history specialist at the National Archives.
"It's obvious in the files the British were sensitive to the claim they
were putting Jews into concentration camps."

A British diplomat in France sent a coded warning to the Foreign Office in
London in August 1947.

"You will realize that an announcement of decision to send immigrants back
to Germany will produce violent hostile outburst in the press," he says.

He suggests an early measure of spin control - telling the press that the
Jews will enjoy some freedoms even though they will be confined.

An unsigned cable from the Foreign Office on Aug. 19, 1947, explains that
the decision to land the Jews in Germany has been made because it is the
only suitable territory under British control that can handle so many
people at short notice.

Three days later, a follow-up Foreign Office cable warns diplomats that
they should be ready to "emphatically" deny that the Jews will be housed
in former concentration camps after they are offloaded in Germany.

The Aug. 22 cable states that German guards will not be used to keep the
Jews in the "refugee camps" and adds that British guards will be withdrawn
once the Jews have been screened.

But security concerns were heightened on Aug. 30 when a secret telegram
from the British Embassy in Washington warned of a possible terrorist
attack by the Irgun and Stern gangs, two Zionist extremist groups
determined to prevent the forced offloading of the Jews in Germany.

The Exodus passengers were successfully taken off the vessels in Germany,
although a number were injured in confrontations with British troops that
involved the use of batons and fire hoses.

An officer identified as Lt. Col. Gregson, in a formerly secret report,
said he considered using tear gas to subdue the Jews but decided not to
risk inflaming the situation.

"The Jew is liable to panic," he wrote.

Security fears seemed justified after the Jews were removed when a large,
homemade bomb with a timed fuse was found on one of the three ships. It
was apparently rigged to detonate after the Jews had been removed, the
cables indicate.

The postscript on the operation comes from the British regional commander
who says that the disembarkation could be regarded as successful because
it was carried out with only minimal casualties. But he says Britain's
reputation was damaged by the highly critical press coverage of OASIS, as
the operation was known in diplomatic and military circles.

"It is impossible to deny that among the Hamburg population OASIS was one
additional cause for reduction in British prestige," he ruefully
concludes.

(source: Associated Press)


********************


Britain's Holocaust shame: The voyage of the Exodus

The ship was filled with Jewish refugees, desperately seeking a new life
in the Promised Land after the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. But,
thanks to the Royal Navy, they were sent back to prison camps in Germany


When British soldiers reached the concentration camps of Nazi Germany in
the last days of the Second World War, the survivors of the Holocaust
hailed them as saviours.

The troops' gruesome discoveries at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, where piles of
skeletal corpses lay amid the camp's death ovens and gas chambers,
prompted Britain's political leaders to promise that the world would never
forget the suffering of the Jews.

Yet, just two years later, the British government was accused of
mistreating thousands of Holocaust survivors, who, when prevented from
fleeing to Palestine, had been forcibly sent back to barbed-wire detention
camps in Germany, staffed by Germans.

Secret papers released at the National Archives for the first time today
reveal the fate of Jewish immigrants aboard the 1947 refugee ship Exodus
and the bitter propaganda battle that ensued when Britain used force to
return them to Germany.

British soldiers, ordered to storm the transport vessels to which the
Jewish immigrants on board Exodus had been transferred, were accused of
behaving like "Hitler Commandos", "gentleman fascists" and sadists.

As the British soldiers clashed with the Jewish refugees at the port of
Hamburg, dockside banners read: "You are bringing us back to Germany, to a
concentration camp worse than Belsen."

The episode proved hugely embarrassing for the British. But the
international condemnation which accompanied the spectacle of Jews being
marched off ships and put on trains for internment camps helped create the
political climate for the creation of Israel the following year.

At the end of the war, it was left to the British to try to stem the flow
of illegal immigration to Palestine, where the British government,
conscious of Arab sensitivities in the region, decided to maintain strict
quotas upon Jewish entry. So it was that, in July 1947, the Exodus, under
the close scrutiny of the Royal Navy, docked in Marseille and picked up
4,553 Jewish refugees, each determined to defy the British blockade of
Palestine.

On its voyage, later made into a Hollywood film starring Paul Newman, the
Exodus was escorted by the British cruiser Ajax and a convoy of
destroyers. The ship's captain, Yossi Harel, who died at the age of 90
last month, had planned to slip away from the escorts as he neared the
coast of Palestine but, in the end, he decided to ignore the British
warnings to stop, and made a run for the port.

The British response to that was to fire a warning shot into the Exodus's
bow, immediately followed by the dispatch of a boarding party.

The passengers and crew resisted, and fierce fighting broke out on the
Exodus. Three passengers and a soldier died, and many were wounded. The
British then towed the Exodus into Haifa harbour, from where it was
planned that the passengers would be sent back to France on three separate
transport vessels.

But when the ships reached Marseilles, the refugees refused to disembark
and the British decided the only course of action left to them was to
escort them back to Germany.

By the time they had docked at Hamburg, many of the refugees were in
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 prison camps in Germany represented a pitiful
failure of their original mission and for many of the Holocaust survivors,
it was almost impossible to bear.

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

Under Operation Oasis, plans were put in place to storm the ships.

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 Sherwood Foresters troops 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 a very different account 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".

After the soldiers had cleared the ships, the refugees were packed on to
trains and taken to two camps in the British zone, Poppendorf and Am Stau.

At the camps, the treatment of the refugees caused an international outcry
after it emerged that the conditions could be likened to the concentration
camps where six million Jews had perished.

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.

But the 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.

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.

As winter set in, the British government made a further attempt to end the
stalemate.

In return for leaving Germany and going to France, the refugees were
offered increased rations.

It turned out to be yet another diplomatic blunder, leaving the British
vulnerable to the accusation that they were adopting a policy of
"starvation or return to France".

In an explanation of its policy a Foreign Office document states: "Those
who refuse transport to France and choose to remain in Germany will be
accommodated in camps provided by the British authorities.

"Those who volunteer to return to France will continue to receive the
present generous ration of 2,800 calories per day up to and including the
time of their departure. Those who choose to remain in Germany will
receive the same basic scale ration as that received by the normal
consumer."

Only two Jews chose to accept the offer of the transfer.

A telegram written by Jewish leaders of the camps on 20 October 1947 makes
clear the determination of the refugees, mostly displaced from Germany and
eastern Europe, 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."

Britain's impossible position was later summed up by John Coulson, a
diplomat at the Briitsh Embassy in Paris.

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."

In the end, the Government decided to follow this advice and the Jewish
migrants were set free. The vast majority did find their way to Palestine
and help in the struggle to create and secure the state of Israel.

(source: The Independent)




USA//TEXAS:

Dallas Holocaust Museum's collection of relics lets history of atrocities
live on


The items are haunting.


Tangles of empty frames of eyeglasses snatched from people's faces.
Black-and-white photos showing piles of bodies in boxcars at concentration
camps.

These relics of the Holocaust fill boxes, shelves and filing cabinets in
an office at the Dallas Holocaust Museum.

Nearly every week, unsolicited items arrive at the downtown museum. Some
come from Holocaust survivors or the people who liberated them. They also
come from families of survivors who discover items tucked way in their
attics, garages and other areas. Some items are found at estate sales.

History lives on in these items, say survivors like Rosalie Schiff, 85, of
Dallas.

"Some people say the Holocaust did not happen, and this is evidence that
it did happen," Mrs. Schiff said. "We were eyewitnesses to it, as
survivors."

She met her future husband, William, at a dance in Krakow, Poland.

Soon after they were married, they were sent to different labor and
concentration camps and didn't see each other for a few years.

The museum donations are especially valuable because many survivors walked
away with nothing.

The Nazis "were taking everything away from us," said Mr. Schiff, 89.

He donated his prison uniform to the Dallas museum.

The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and believed that Jews were
inferior.

They eventually killed about 6 million Jews, most of them during World War
II.

"Shouldn't we tell the world what happened?" Mr. Schiff said. "I think it
helps. We have a lot of problems with Saddam Hussein, bin Laden. People
like this, they're unpredictable. It can happen again. ... We have a
chance to protect ourselves."

Items are also donated by relatives of Holocaust survivors who want to
make sure their loved ones are remembered, said Pamalla Anderson, the
museum's archivist.

"It allows their legacy to go on," she said.

Corinna Valencia-Flores donated pictures that her deceased brother, Robert
Valencia, an Army paratrooper, took when he was liberating concentration
camps in Poland. The Texas native's pictures included "piles of bones,
just bones, bodies."

"That's where they belong," at the museum, she said. "I didn't want them
laying around."

The twisted eyeglass frames and tarnished rings likely taken from people
sent to labor or concentration camps came from a man believed to be a
Nazi sympathizer, museum officials said.

The items were donated this year after they were discovered at a Dallas
estate sale and experts determined they were authentic.

Other items in the museum's collection include a doorknocker with a
swastika on the handle that hits the caricatured face of a Jew.

There's a rock from Auschwitz, shoes with wooden soles worn in a
concentration camp, a Star of David patch that Jews were forced to wear,
bracelets and lockets with pictures of family members, German propaganda
books and pictures from concentration camps.

Ms. Anderson says she's never quite sure what's going to land on her desk.

"I try to file it and not look at it," she said of some of the items.

"I don't think you can ever be desensitized. You hear the stories, you see
the items. It spurs you on."

There isn't enough space in the museum to display all of the items, but
that will change when a new facility opens on land acquired near the Sixth
Floor Museum. The museum is organizing a fundraising drive, but an opening
date hasn't been determined.

Jack Repp, who survived several concentration camps, donated his prison
uniform partly because he didn't want to look at it every day.

He lost almost all his family members in the Holocaust.

The 84-year-old Dallas resident also donates his time, speaking with
children who tour the museum.

"Everything that a survivor has ... these items, for historical purposes,
shouldn't only be given but be seen by people for generations to come,"
Mr. Repp said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)