Three days after the Jews left Lübeck, on 8th November 1947, an article about the evacuated camps
of Pöppendorf and Am Stau appeared in the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN).
Under the title:
Rubbish left in the camps of the Exodus Jews
the article states that the Exodus refugees had left a mountain of rubbish. The rumour that these
people had, from time to time, bathed their children in cocoa and evaporated milk, and looted and
destroyed the camp, was additionally reported.
The Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN) further reported:
The inhabitants arrived in the camps "poor as church mice" and departed the barbed-wire fencing
with foldaway sewing-machines, radios and clothing.
On the same day Norbert Wollheim wrote to the editorial staff of the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN), on behalf of the Lübeck Jewish community, requesting the publication of his letter. In this letter, he as chairman of the Lübeck Jewish community, expressed his dismay concerning "such an unfair, un-called for, and unobjective account" of the facts. Wollheim's letter was not referred to nor was the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper article corrected.
The British military authority regarded the condition in which the Pöppendorf camp was left, in contrast to the Am Stau camp, as better than they had expected. Extensive work had been carried out to clear away the refuse that had naturally accumulated after such a long occupation. On 17th September 1947, the camp was ready for re-occupation, and Pöppendorf served as a refugee transit camp until mid 1950.
In July 1948, the last military file entry was made for Operation Oasis. The last entry was the issuing of 255.38 Reichsmark for 105 missing truncheons the British had loaned from the Hamburg police for the disembarking of the Exodus passengers.
More than 50 years after the Exodus passengers' residence in Lübeck there is practically nothing to remind one of the tragedy of these refugees. There is only an information board in Waldhusener Forest that indicates, in a few words, the former residence of this group of Jewish people. In the Jewish cemetery in Moisling there are two Exodus gravestones, one of which is inscribed with: "EXODUS - Unknown Child".
William Berstein, with the two others who were killed in the battle with the British aboard the Exodus 1947, is buried, wrapped in an American flag, in Martyr's Row in Haifa cemetery. 20,000 mourners attended his Memorial service in Madison Square Park on 25th July 1947.
In 1951, the mayor of Haifa announced that the "Exodus 1947" was to become "a floating museum, a symbol
of the desperate attempts by Jewish refugees to find asylum in the Holy Land". The idea was postponed
in the preoccupation with a war of defence.
On 26th August 1952, the ship caught fire and burned to the waterline. The hulk was towed out of the
shipping area and abandoned on Shemen Beach.
On 23rd August 1964 an attempt was made to salvage her for scrap. The hull was cut in half as it was
feared it would break if raised in one piece. When the pumps of the salvage vessel were applied, the
bow section righted itself and appeared above water. Suddenly it broke loose and sank again. The old
hulk, broken in two and submerged, remains on the bottom of Shemen Beach, near Haifa.
