Pöppendorf statt Palästina
Online präsentation der Ausstellung
"Pöppendorf statt Palästina" über den Zwangsaufenthalt der Passagiere des
jüdischen Flüchtlingsschiffes "Exodus 1947" in Lübeck.
Allied Troops liberated Auschwitz on 27th January 1945, and Bergen-Belsen on 15th April 1945.
A picture of inconceivable horror was revealed to the world. In these secret camps, amidst the
stench of decomposing bodies, the soldiers discovered countless piles of corpses, and mass graves.
The few remaining survivors were more dead than alive.
The army rabbi Leslie Hardmann, who entered Bergen-Belsen on 16th April 1945, gave the following
description:
As we continued further, we encountered what appeared to me to be the survivors of the holocaust
- a staggering mass of black flesh and bone, held together only by feltlike rags. "My God, the
dead walk", I cried out.
The allied military authorities had the difficult task of providing the survivors with essential food, clothing and medicine. Despite all efforts, for many former prisoners this help came too late. 9,000 individuals died from malnutrician and illnesses, in Bergen-Belsen, in the first two weeks of liberation.
The complete surrender of the German Armed Forces took effect on 9th May 1945. The war in Europe had come to an end, even though it was not until 15 days later, on 23rd May 1945, that the incumbent Nazi government under the leadership of Karl Dönitz was removed from power, and arrested.
What remained was a war destroyed Europe with barren, bombed-out cities, and everywhere unutterable human suffering and hunger. On the day of the allied liberation of Germany there were an estimated 10·8 million non-Germans living in the devastated, former Third Reich. These were the forced labourers, concentration camp and death camp prisoners, and prisoners of war that the Nazis had brought here from practically every European country. The allies named these individuals Displaced Persons (DPs).
These surviving victims of the Nazi regime, who had lived for years under the threat of death, were both physically and mentally exhausted. Initially, the survivors remained in the camp environs as it took a long time until the allies were able to provide new accommodation for the unexpectedly large number of DPs. Assembly Camps, so-called DP Camps, were soon built in the American and British Zones, which offered quick and comprehensive aid for these people. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and, from 1947, its successor organization, the International Relief Organization (IRO), provided extensive support in this aid operation.
The allied powers sought to quickly return the DPs to their respective native countries. By autumn 1945, 80% of all DPs had been successfully returned.
At the end of 1956 around 1 million DPs were still living in the Western Zone. They were mostly DPs from eastern Europe who declined to leave being justifiably afraid that they would be accused of collaboration in their native countries. In addition to these, individuals who were physically and mentally exhausted, and numerous Jewish DPs remained behind in the camps.
In contrast to the American Zone where, from August 1945, Jewish DPs were recognized as an autonomous group, and who from then on lived in their own separate Jewish DP Camps, in the British Zone they were only permitted to live in separate blocks within DP Camps. In the British Zone the Bergen-Belsen Hohne DP Camp developed into the centre of Jewish life. The prisoners liberated from the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were accommodated here. There was also a large DP Camp, with initially over 600 Jewish DPs, in Neustadt, on the Baltic coast of Schleswig-Holstein.
The holocaust survivors were initially numbed immediately following their liberation:
We had forgotten how to laugh; we could no longer weep; we did not understand what it meant
to be free. [...] We were not alive, we were still dead!
Many were suffering from despondency and melancholy. The courage to live life again developed only
gradually between those who had experienced and suffered a similar fate. The survivors soon called
themselves, She aerith Hapletah, "the remainder, who escaped."
Initially, the military authorities were responsible for the organization and administration of
the DP Camps, within which the United Nations aid organisations worked. The latter assumed
responsibility for the internal administration of the camps, medical care, and in supervising
the work of other aid agencies. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), known
simply as "Joint", provided special aid . They collected food, to supplement the sparse military
rations, and clothing, but also organized cultural events, and financial and practical support for
a school system.
Religious life gradually redeveloped. Schools, children's homes, libraries and training centres were established in the camps.
In the British Zone, German Jewish holocaust survivors were not granted DP status. This was due to the Britsh principle of classifying Jews according to nationality, which meant that, in contrast to Jewish DPs, German Jews received no preferential treatment until mid 1946.
Jewish life also slowly redeveloped in the towns. In Schleswig-Holstein new Jewish groups and communities emerged in Eckernförde, Eutin, Witdün, Friedrichstadt, Itzehoe, Neumünster and Kiel. The largest community to be established was in Lübeck. Aside from the procuring of necessities these communities essentially assisted with the registration of missing persons. The re-establishment of the Lübeck synagogue, in September 1945, played an important part in the beginning of a new Jewish community in the Hanse city.
However, understandably almost none of the Jewish DPs and holocaust survivors wished to remain in Germany, the country that had perpetrated the holocaust. Many tried to emigrate to Sweden and the USA, but the vast majority wanted to emigrate to Palestine.
From 1939 onward, from fear of ethnic conflict between Arab and Jew, the British restricted the issuing of entry visas to roughly 1,500 per month. Nothing changed with the termination of the Second World War, which is why Palestine appeared virtually unattainable to the holocaust survivors. Even though President Truman called for the provision of 100,000 emigration certificates for Jewish DPs, nothing changed. The British Labour Government led by prime minister Clement Attlee retained its restrictive immigration policy.
Therefore, Jewish DPs concentrated their hopes on illegal emigration to Palestine, promoted by Zionist groups in the DP Camps. The Mossad le Aliya Beth movement (Emigration B) was founded at the end of the 1920s to take Jews illegally to Palestine. The Zionist underground organizations Mossad and Haganah took overall charge of illegal emigration.
In German DP Camps, in October 1945, David Ben Gurion, later Israel's first prime minister, demanded an increase in emigration. Politicians were aware, before the end of the Second World War, that with the assistance of the Jewish survivors of the holocaust, it would be possible to push ahead with the founding of a Jewish State.
Increasingly groups of Jewish DPs departed the camps to travel to one of the emigration centres in southern Europe, from where illegal emigration to Palestine was organised.
Between 1945 and 1948, around 250,000 Jews fled Poland in particular, but also other east-European countries, mainly to the American Zone in Germany, where they acquired the status of DP. Their goal was also Palestine.
The Brichah (Hebrew = escape), a Zionist underground organisation founded by a group of holocaust survivors in Poland, organised escape and border crossings for these people. Lübeck was a node in the extensive network of the Brichah. Thereby, Benjamin Gruka, a Jewish member of the resistance in Poland, who lives today in Lübeck, played a significant role.
These groups of Jews arrived in Lübeck in transports of Germans expelled from former German areas in eastern Europe, having travelled to Stettin by train or ship.
These travel-exhausted individuals were accommodated and cared for in the synagogue in Lübeck, until, on the following day, they were taken to the DP Camp Belsen-Hohne, or into the American Zone. From here began the sea journey, in scapped freighters, generally via the Italian or French coasts, to Palestine.
These sea journeys were extremely perilous as the British navy attempted to prevent these freighters from entering British mandated Palestine territorial waters. Often the British navy forcefully boarded these ships on the high seas, and interned the refugees in camps on Cyprus or in Palestine itself.
Once having successfully broken the sea blockade these refugee ships were deliberately beached on the coast of Palestine. The last stretch to the beach was reached by swimming or in life boats.
In June 1947, several thousand Jews, including several Jews who had escaped via Lübeck, awaited a sea journey to Palestine. These refugees had no idea that they would soon be seeing Lübeck again.
From 1928 to 1940, the pleasure steamer President Warfield sailed between Baltimore and Norfolk in Chesapeak Bay, on the east coast of America. The ship was distinguished by its luxury bars and dance halls. In 1940/41 the President Warfield was taken out of service and converted into a troop and supply ship for the British navy.
During the war it survived several sea battles without any serious damage. After being renovated, and
assigned to the American navy, it took part in the allied Normany landings on 6th June 1944.
Marked by its war service the ship was anchored in the ships' graveyard in Balimore.
Here, the old, derelict President Warfield came to the attention of the Haganah, who, at the end of 1946, bought it, through an intermediary, for 60,000 dollars. Ike Aronowicz, who was later to become its captain, immediately saw the suitability of this pleasure steamer for its future task. The President Warfield had a very short draught of 2·40 metres, that would allow it to sail close up to the coast of Palestine to disembark its refugees, without other ships being able to follow it.
In January 1947 the initial conversions were carried out to the ship. By the end of January the entire crew had been assembled, through Haganah contacts. There were nearly 40 young Jewish volunteers from all over the USA. Some of these were: Cyril Weinstein, Eli Kalm, William Bernstein, Bernard Marks, Ben Foreman, Frank Lavine, Avi Livni, Nat Adler, Sam Schulmann, Murray Aronoff, and Rev. John Stanley Grauel, Methodist minister, who was the official observer for the American Christian Palestine Committee. On 18th February 1947, the Honduras consulate granted a certificate allowing the ship to sail under its flag.
Six days later, on 24th February 1947, the ship took to sea. The journey ended a day later on 25th February 1947: the President Warfield encountered a storm and had to be towed into Norfolk harbour. The complete loss of supplies and the damage could be managed, but British intelligence was aroused through the reports in the press.
The British government sought to prevent the ship from sailing, by attempting to stop it sailing under the Honduran flag.
However, the attempt came too late. By the time the British were successfully able to bring pressure on the Honduran government the President Warfield was already in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship left the coast of America on 29th March 1947: heading for Europe, with British Intelligence in tow.
Shortly thereafter, captain Ike Aronowicz decided to depart France altogether and, at the end of April
1947, docked in the Italian harbour of Portovenere, where conversion work immediately commenced again.
In Portovenere Haganah agents came aboard: Yossi Harel (code name: Amnon), former Hamburger, became ship's commander
and took charge of the entire operation, Micha Perlson, commander of the refugees, responsible for their
care and protection, Miri, who remained with the refugees even after they left the ship, and Sima,
a nurse.
British Intelligence observed every movement on board. An Italian gunboat was moored directly in
front of the bows of the President Warfield preventing her from sailing. On 11th June 1947, to the
surprise of the crew, the obstruction was removed. Ike Aronowicz used this opportunity to depart
Portovenere. However, the gunboat persistently shadowed the President Warfield while in Italian waters.
As the Haganah had not agreed on a place where the refugees were to board ship a stopover was made,
once again, in Port de Bouc. On 14th June 1947 two harbour officers made a thorough control of the ship
and found no shortcomings, wherupon the President Warfield received its certificate of seaworthiness.
On 9th July 1947, the ship arrived in the harbour of Sète where, on the night of 10th July 1947,
the refugees were brought on board.
The refugees saw the 118 metre long President Warfield. However, its size was deceptive. Each
passenger had a
bunk approximately 45cm wide with 60cm headroom.
Dov Freiberg relates:
My first impression was very bad, I felt as if we were entering the gas chambers.
The French officer, Laurent Leboutet, who was informed of the plan, allowed the President Warfield to sail at 01.00 Hrs on 11th July 1947. The President Warfield, with 4,554 people on board, began its uncertain course towards Palestine.
The situation worsened daily, as a French diary entry remarks:
The sea began to get rough; the ship listed 25 degrees. That was unusual for the Mediterranean.
The majority of passengers suffered from sea-sickness. It was a desperate situation. [...] the crew
gave assistance everywhere but to each individual only a little. They vacated their cabins for the
sick, and elderely women. Naturally that was not enough and above all it was the irony of fate.
The only change in their lives was the daily 45 minute walk on deck, and shower, as Dov Freiberg
remarks:
I remember we were washing and an American sailor stood there with a large hose and sprayed us
with water. It was fantastic.
On 17th July 1947, the President Warfield was renamed "Exodus 1947", in a ceremony on the open sea, and the Zionist blue-white flag with the Star of David, later to become the flag of the State of Israel, was hoisted. The Hatikwa, later to become the Israeli national anthem, was sung repeatedly. Thereby, the Haganah stated their goal: the founding of the State of Israel.
On the following night the unforeseen occured: the British destroyers attacked the Exodus 1947.
Noah Klieger, a refugee, relates the situation:
The British fleet attacked on the night of 17th/18th July, as we were on the high seas, and over
20 sea miles from Palestinian territorial waters. Six destroyers and two minesweepers, under the command
of the light cruiser, "Ajax" [...] made an assault on the "Exodus". An assault on this old, scrap,
pleasure steamer whose belly held over 4,500 Jewish survivors of the holocaust it was taking to the
promised land of Palestine.
The refugees were determined not to surrender the ship to the British without a fight.
Tin cans, screws, potatoes, bottles, wooden boards and metal bars - these were the weapons with
which we "Exodus" refugees fought. Only after the British assault-group had opened fire, and we
suffered the first of our dead and seriously injured, did the combat-tried marines succeed in bringing
the "Exodus" under their control. The unequal fight - in the course of which the destroyers rammed
our ship several times causing heavy damage - lasted 7 hours. We suffered four dead, among them being
the first officer, William Bernstein, and the 15 year old Zvi Jakubowitz, and over 150 seriously
injured.
In the late afternoon of 18th July 1947, the "Exodus 1947", flying the Zionist flag, was escorted into the port of Haifa by the British warships.
The next day, the three caged prison ships, the Ocean Vigour, the Runnymede Park, and the Empire Rival, departed Haifa with the Exodus passengers. 1,464 people were accommodated on the Ocean Vigour, around 1,409 on the Runnymede Park and 1,526 were crammed into the belly of the Empire Rival.
The refugees assumed they, as illegal emigrants, would be interned in camps on the island of Cyprus. What was initially a rumour was later confirmed: the three prison ships were sailing towards the European mainland, back towards France.
The conditions on board these ships were terrible. The refugees lay crammed together in the bare
holds of the freighters.
Noah Klieger remembers his impressions of the Empire Rival:
We slept, squeezed together, on the bare boards of the ship.
On all three ships groups were formed who, under Haganah command, began to build an organisation.
It was resolved that all passengers were to remain on board, and not disembark, on arriving in
France.
The refugees were repeatedly encouraged to keep resisting. The success of these tactics was made more
complicated in that communication between the three prison ships was not possible.
The Jews were to be disembarked in Port de Bouc. The refugees refused to disembark. Their only desire was to enter Palestine. Consequently, the British made plans to evacuate the ships. The French government opposed this action. On 30th July 1947, representatives of the French government offered the refugees asylum in France, on the condition that they departed the ships of their own free will.
Only 130 people left the three ships due to the enormous group pressure exerted by members of the
Haganah. The rest remained in the holds of the ships, waiting under the scorching July sun. On 21st
August 1947, the British presented a disquietening ultimation. Communique No. 127 stated:
It being obviously impossible for three British transport ships to anchor for an indefinite
period in French inshore waters, it has been decided that if the Jews do not begin to disembark
before 6 p.m. [British Summer Time] on 22nd August, the ships will sail to the British Zone in
Germany, where the passengers will be immediately disembarked.
This is the only territory under British jurisdiction, excluding Cyprus and Palestine, in which
such a large number of people may be adequately accommodated and cared for within a reasonable
amount of time.
The British were in earnest: at 18.20 Hrs on 22nd August 1947 the Ocean Vigour, the Runnymede Park, and the Empire Rival sailed for Germany, the country in which, only a few years previously, Jews had suffered the indescribable horror of the holocaust.
The Jews continued their silent protest. They continued to sing the Hatikwa, and painted a swastika on the British flag of one of the prison ships.
On the 25th August the British cabinet met, under pressure from media publicity, to discuss again the decision to transport the Exodus refugees to Germany. The ships discontinued their journey for as long as the cabinet held their discussion. The ships remained in Gibralta during this time. On 30th August 1947, following the fruitless termination of the discussion, the ships weighed anchor for Germany. Their destination was, and remained Hamburg, from where the refugees were to be taken to a camps in Lübeck.
The British government had decided on 21st August that the destination of the Exodus passengers was to be Hamburg, in the British Zone in Germany. Force was to be used if necessary. Army units, having previously served in the Middle East, were assembled, and completely cordoned off the port area. The approximately 1,000 soldiers were given the order not to use their weapons in any way that could endanger life, even when this would prevent flight.
Almost 200 journalists from newspapers worldwide had arrived in Hamburg to report on the termination
of the cynically named Operation Oasis. Meanwhile, preparations for arrival were being made on board
the prison ships. The people on board were extremely distressed that they had been returned to Germany.
A statement given to the Lübeck news precisely reflected this feeling:
We do not want to enter this damned Germany which has cost us 6 million lives, France neither;
we wish to go to Palestine to live as a free people, in a free country.
As any fight to prevent disembarkation was hopeless from the outset, and because of the strain of the previous one and a half months journey, evidenced by the weak and weary people, the Haganah command on board resolved on a passive resistance.
At the same time, 4,000 Jewish people, in the Belsen-Hohne DP camp in the British Zone, in the Lüneburg Heath, demonstrated against the planned forced disembarkation of the Exodus passengers in Hamburg. They had not relinquished the hope of finding a humanitarian solution to the Exodus affair.
Thereupon, families with children and elderly people left the ship. Huge loudspeakers transmitted
Jazz music.
Exactly as in Auschwitz, exactly as in Bergen-Belsen, exactly like the Nazis.
wrote the Jewish community newspaper for the British Zone.
At 09.15 Hrs the remaining passengers refused to leave the ship. One hundred military police and
infantrymen equipped with steel helmets, wooden truncheons, gasmasks, and tear gas canisters
stormed the ship. One hour later the Ocean Vigour had been evacuated. The people were taken to
awaitng trains that soon departed for Lübeck. In Lübeck the internment camps of Pöppendorf and
Am Stau had been prepared for their arrival.
On the following morning the Empire Rival was
evacuated. Its passengers were mainly women and children, as well as 126 sick people. Following
the search of the ship a self built time bomb was discovered that had been smuggled on board in
Port de Bouc. The bomb was taken to the nearby marine barracks for defusing, where it exploded
before the arrival of the explosive experts.
Finally, the evacuation of the Runnymede Park began. The ultimation to leave the ship was met
by shouts, whistles, and the singing of Jewish songs by the passengers in the holds. At 12 noon,
the soldiers boarded the ship. The commanding officer renounced the use of tear gas, fearing
panic, and ordered the people to be individually carried out of the hold. The use of trunchions
became the rule. Five to seven soldiers were required to drag one person off the ship. The
atmosphere of despair passed from the ship to the quay where the Jews were waiting to be
transported further.
Men and women wept, screamed and shrieked.
At 14.00 Hrs the Runnymede Park was evacuated. Shortly before the trains left for Lübeck the International Red Cross brought food to the passengers in the railway carriages. However, the passengers, in their uncontrolable anger, flung the food back onto the platform. At the same time, 400 Jews from the Bergen-Hohne camp were demonstrating against British government policy, and attempted to force their way into the port area. German police denied them entry.
After having witnessed this inhuman action a journalist wrote a letter of protest to President Truman. The majority of international journalists were also shocked. The events in Hamburg were transmitted around the world.
The station approach roads were closed off. The platform was sealed off with barbed-wire and fencing denying entry to unauthorized persons and preventing observation. The holocaust survivors left the railway carriages quickly and without incident.
British heavy lorries shuttled the Jews to Pöppendorf internment camp, 800 metre away in the Walhusener Forest, and to the Am Stau internment camp on the Herreninsel. Each lorry was escorted by two soldiers with machine-guns. The sick, expectant mothers, and the infirm were taken in ambulances. The passengers from the Empire Rival and Runnymede Park arrived in Lübeck-Kücknitz station on the following day so that in the evening of 9th September, 4,319 Exodus passengers were in the two camps.
Pöppendorf camp, lying between Lübeck and Travemünde, was built in July 1945 to accommodate discharged
members of the German Armed Forces. From November 1945 onward it served as a transit camp for refugees
from eastern Germany. With more than half a million inhabitants it was the largest transit camp
for refugees in Schleswig-Holstien.
The smaller Am Stau camp had mainly Polish Displaced Persons.
While watch-towers with floodlights were erected around the camps and over 125 tents were erected
adjacent the Nissan huts, the current occupiers had to leave. They were quartered in other
accommodation.
On 23rd August, the Senat of the Hanse city of Lübeck ruled an:
Opposition to this burden on the physically overcrowded city, and opposition to the utilization
of the urgently required camps for refugees.
The accommodation was completely renovated and cleaned. The British appointed their own camp commander.
The German administration was subordinate to him. The former camp personnel, entirely made up of
refugees from the east, was requested by the British to take charge of the new Jewish inhabitants.
The personnel had to undergo a special screening and questioning. The German camp commander, together
with the works committee instructed the personnel:
In the carrying out of their duty to show the greatest restraint in respect of the Jews, and on
no condition to get involved in an exchange of words or dispute.
The UN International Relief Oganization (IRO) supplied aid, and assured the refugees the status of
Displaced Persons. They totally rejected this status.
We are not DPs, we are in transit to Palestine.
was noted by the British camp command.
A protest rally took place, in opposition to the activity of the aid agencies, and in being again accommodated "under guard in a kind of concentration camp". As the summer night fell the demonstration ended with Jewish songs and dances.
In the Am Stau camp a German guard on patrol, observed:
how the huge finger of a floodlight, in the main Pöppendorf Jewish camp, swept over the sleeping
barracks.
Reporting in the German press was more varied in respect to the Exodus passengers. Besides sympathy
and consternation there was also latent antisemitism and envy.
Both these views were, in particular, expressed in the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN). Both the
Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN) and the Lübecker Freien Presse newspaper (LFP) had kept their
readers regularly informed of the journey of the Exodus Jews from Palestine to Lübeck, from the time
the Exodus 1947 had entered Haifa. On 10th September, the Lübecker Nachrichten newspaper (LN)
carried the
headline and front page article: "Exodus Jews in Lübeck". The article contained the following passages:
It is years - how many exactly? - since we saw such people. They, then, disappeared behind the
barbed-wire of the Polish ghettos and concentration camps.
This implied that the ghettos and concentration camps were built by the Poles and not by the Germans.
This reluctance to face the truth of historical fact is evident again:
I interviewed several young people - who had allegedly spent years in concentration camps - about
the course of their journey.
In contrast to the majority of the German Press, the Northwestdeutsch Rundfunk radio (NWDR) adopted a
clear position in its commentaries. For the NWDR, the:
tragedy of our fellow Jewish men and women from the "Exodus" [...] is reason to fight antisemitism
unrelentingly and with all our might.
The NWDR commentator also expressed sympathy for Jewish people illegally attempting to reach Palestine:
It has to be understood how people in despair should disregard social norms which prevent them
from realizing their milennia old desire for a homeland.
Radio Bremen made the following commentary regarding the Exodus 1947 refugees:
the fate of the homelessness of the Jewish people is being repeated.
The German camp command entrusted him with interpreter work in connection with the initial Jewish
resistant against the British military. Henceforth, he translated British orders into Yiddish.
Unknown to the British or Germans, he added words making it clear to the refugees which orders
were not to be followed. When the Exodus Passengers arrived and were required to give their name,
date of birth and nationality, Benjamin Gruszka translated:
Yeder Yid zoll zich farschreiben mit linke Nehmen. (Every Jew should give a false name).
The people understood and followed his instructions, resulting in the following:
My name is Marlene Dietrich and I come from Erez Israel.
or
I am Lord Montgomery and come from Tel Aviv.
Initially, the German personnel carefully wrote down the names and then hesitated and asked, "Really?"
When Lord Pickenham, minister for the British Zone in Germany, visited the Pöppendorf camp and required
the Jews to register, Bolek translated. To Lord Pickenham's speech he added the Yiddish proverb:
"A loi mit n Alef", which amounts to:
A nothing with an A in front, or He can make long speeches.
To which the majority answered "Amen". Lord Pickenham asked Bolek what this meant, to which he replied:
"The Jews thank you for your warm speech".
The Haganah commander knew that there could be no trouble-free aid without dialogue with the camp
administration, and so the protest against the German camp personnel was terminated. The Haganah
commanders also decided to withdraw from their function as leaders, and to build a Jewish camp
committee.
The election of an independent Jewish camp committee had been promoted by the German camp
administration before the Jews had arrived in Lübeck, "so as to eliminate all possibility of friction
within the camp between the German personnel and the Jews".
The election took place on 15th September 1947. Under the chairmanship of Mordechai Rosmann,
the Jewish committee assumed the role of representing the camp inhabitants, and became the Jewish
contact with the British camp administration and German camp personnel. It continued to organize
further daily protests against British government policy.
On 25th September 1947, The British camp command announced, in Yiddish, English, Hungarian, Polish
and French, an offer negotiated between the British and French governments:
France was willing to accept all the Jewish illegal emigrants from the former pleasure steamer
President Warfield.
As an incentive, the British offered the Jews "the generous allocation of circa 2,800 calories
per day" until their departure, if they accepted this offer. Should this offer be rejected
"His Majesty's Government" announced a reduction in the ration quota to that of the level of the German
population, i.e. around 1,500 calories per day. In addition, they would remain in the camps.
The Jewish camp committee rejected the offer and stated that:
the sole solution to their problem was the allocation of certificates allowing them to enter
their homeland of Palestine.
On 1st October 1947, the ration quota was reduced but this provoked no reaction. The British military government had planned from the beginning to maintain guarding the Jews only until they were registered and categorized. The results of the attempted registration had revealed it to have been of "dubious value", so that the camp command were forced to accept its failure. At the beginning of October, British soldiers began to dismantle the watch towers. Only the barbed-wire fence remained, in accordance with the desire of the Jewish committee, as protection from "malicious" people.
On 6th October, the British guard departed the camp; the British camp command staff remained. The command of the camp was transferred to the Jewish camp committee working in co-operation with the German camp administration. From this time on Jewish camp police were responsible for guarding and keeping order in the camp. Camp inhabitants could only enter and leave the camp by presenting newly issued identity papers. They were free again.
Jewish aid organizations had been given access to the camps to distribute aid five days after the
arrival of the Jews in Lübeck. Before the arrival of the refugees in Lübeck British pressure
compelled these Jewish aid organizations to provide aid, otherwise:
their legitimacy would have been placed in doubt.
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), "Joint", lorries delivered food, cigarettes, clothing and tinned kosher meat, to the camp. The refugees received numerous parcels, particularly from the USA and Canada. The Lübeck Jewish community provided fruit and vegetables. In the evenings, meals were prepared from these stocks of food in the camp kitchen, or cooking areas in front of the barracks. The Danish and Swedish Red Cross also provided humanitarian aid. Contibutions also arrived from other DP camps.
Staff of the Jewish Relief Unit took care of the sick, and hygien conditions. On 22nd September, Jewish doctors, nurses and a pharmacy undertook medical care of the camp inhabitants, formerly provided by the German personnel. Those patients who could not be cared for in the camp hospital were admitted to hospitals in Lübeck. These were frequently women in the last stages of pregnancy, shortly before delivery. 53 babies were born in the British Zone.
The state of health of the people exhausted from the long odyssey improved relatively quickly. However, the hygien situation in the camps often gave cause for concern. The drinking water supply, the primitive washing facilities, and the inadequate latrines caused particular concern.
The adults also continued their education. English was taught in the open air. As there were practically no teaching materials the wooden walls of the barracks were used as blackboards. Each lesson ended with a dictation, and homework. A kindergarten was established for the pre-school children.
There were also film shows in the camp. A newspaper was published in the Am Stau camp. Music was particularly popular with the young camp inhabitants. Mouth organs were very much sought-after. There was a dance band comprising saxophone, accordion and drums.
The practice of religion played an important role. Makeshift synagogues were established, in which
men and women prayed early in the morning. The Sabbath was also adhered to, and respected by the
British.
One of the German camp personnel related an incident in connection with the Sabbath:
One evening a man approached me with the request that I leave my post for a few moments and
follow him to his barrack. I found all the inhabitants in their bunks ready for sleep. They
explained that it was Sabbath and they, being religious Jews, were not allowed to perform even
minor work. I was asked to put out the lights. The following day I received a cigarette for my
trouble. [...] And so I received a cigarette and the Jews their lights out for the night.
Rabbis often visited the camps, to pray together with the camp inhabitants, or simply to give
encouragement. Together with the Jewish New Year, traditionally celebrated on 25th September in
1947, Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) was also solemnly celebrated.
The same German wrote:
One of the German barrack orderlies was prayed for on the Day of Atonement. The barrack elder
gave a short speech: "Today we celebrate Yom Kippur. Those who have murdered our brothers and
sisters have been punished. You, dear Sir, are not guilty. Come, share with us the bread of peace!"
This statement was hardly observed. The British military authority in Lübeck
reported in one of its regular bulletins:
generally, the Germans consider British conduct towards the Jews as being too kind-hearted.
The lack of food in the shops is blamed on the Jews, as they receive part of this food.
An undertone of resentment was often to be read in the Lübeck Nachrichten newspaper (LN), as on
1st October 1947:
The rubbish container full of discarded food demonstrates that no one is going hungry in either
camp.
Practically the only contact citizens of Lübeck had with the Jews was through the black market.
Aljons Filcek, a refugee from eastern Europe, and one of the German personnel in the Am Stau camp,
refers to this black market in
his memories of the Exodus Jews, written in December 1947:
Competition developed between the three business-minded youths [who were employed in the camp]
and the old coffee-addicts from Lübeck. The latter came with apples, onions, pillows and old
fashioned kettles to barter for coffee. The Jews had much food from aid deliveries, but no real
coffee. However, they bartered with American canned meat, cocoa powder and cigarettes.
Outsiders were not permitted to enter the camps. Negotiations took place at the outer barbed-wire fence. Understandings and exchange of goods were not easy as the feence was four metres wide. After each party had shown his goods, and made a bargain, the goods were tossed over the fence.
This trade with the outside world quickly took on a commercial character: salted, smoked and pickled herrings were brought on handcarts from the suburb of Schlutup to entice coveted, scarce, American commodities. [...] After the Jews were permitted to leave the camp this barter significantly decreased, without it declining altogether.
Often, dancers returning home in the evening from one of the localities situated near the
Am Stau camp would merrily sing.
Aljons Filcek again comments:
From time to time there were incorrigible youths among them, who could not refrain from
giving their best of rabble-rousing songs of the Nazi period.
Aljons Filcek again makes this observation:
The curiosity of the tram passengers, during the time I was on duty during the day, was most
disagreeable. The camp lay close to the Lübeck-Travemünde road and the Lübeck-Kücknitz tramline.
When the, mostly overcrowded, tramcars rattled past the camp all faces turned in the direction
of the camp. [...] This unwelcome curiosity was heightened by inappropriate jokes from the
conductor. As a passenger, I repeatedly heard the conductor smilingly announce, "Palestine", when
we came to our tram stop.
One of these children was Shlomo Hammer, born on 13th May 1934 in Lemberg, Poland. In 1987, he
recounted what he remembered of his early life. As a five year old he had to watch the Germans
kill his grandfather; he, and his mother, were able to escape. Shlomo Hammer relates:
We experienced the ghetto, in 1940. My parents were murdered there. Everybody was murdered,
only we children were smuggled away. I was hidden in a bunker. [...] I was hidden in the bunker,
under the earth, for 9 months. [...] When the Russians , the Red Army, liberated us my face lit
up with wonder. [...] We travelled to Cracow where I was placed in a children's home. I then
travelled to Germany with a group of other children. I was a 10 year old orphan. [...] From
Germany I travelled to France. That was an experience. We were told we were to travel to Palestine.
We were taught for this goal. We started to learn in a real school. [...] We were educated to be
able to live in Erez Israel, Aliya Beth, love of country. At this time, as I left the camp I no
longer wanted to be a Jew. After the holocaust. [...]
We came to a camp near Marseille. [...] We arrived in France at night, and were roughly two days there before we were brought aboard the ship, again at night. [...] Everyone had to lie on their sides, not on their backs. Like sardines. The feet all pointed in the same direction. Despite everything I have good memories of the ship.
At the age of 13, Shlomo experienced the tragic journey of the Exodus 1947, the arrival in
Hamburg, on the Runnymede Park, and the final train journey to Lübeck:
We were again loaded onto lorries. From there we were taken to Pöppendorf. Pöppendorf was a
concentration camp. I do not know how long we remained there. We were surrounded by barbed-wire
and watch towers. [...] What distressed us was the rows of British soldiers; I saw Nazis once
again...
Many children from Poland and Hungry survived the holocaust by having been hidden from the Nazis in monasteries and convents, and children's homes. After the war, Jewish Kindertransport organizers, like Hanshomer Haztair, travelled from one cloister to another and fetched these Jewish orphans out from their concealment. These children were given preparation for a life in Palestine, so that they would have a future there. They were to contribute to the building of a Jewish state in their own country.
Istvan Szeisen, Otto Nagyrona and Tamas Magyrona were fetched by Hashomer Haztair from a children's home in Budapest, and taken to the preparation camp in Ansbach. Here they learned Hebrew and Jewish culture. Later they were taken on board the refugee ship to travel to Palestine. Istvan, Otto and Tamas found themselves on board the Exodus 1947 and later in the Pöppendorf and Am Stau camps.
The British camp command suspected that there were non-Jewish children among the Hungarian children,
who had, through coincidence, come aboard the Exodus 1947. The British endeavoured to discover who
their parents were.
In this way, Korohy Koffler, a young Hungarian came aboard the Exodus 1947. He got to know Hashomer
Haztair in
January 1946, in Hungary, and joined them. He told his parents he wanted to make a ten day journey
with an organisation. Two weeks later the parents were informed by a Hashomer Haztair member that
their son was on his way to Palestine. From Ansbach he wrote that he wanted to take responsibility
for his own life. On 28th July 1947, he related that he was on his way to Palestine. He was 16 years
old.
The Jewish camp command independently co-ordinated the move. Several commanders expressed the wish to take the German camp pesonnel with them to the new quarters. Although this wish was not fulfilled it is evidence of the gradual growth of trust that had developed for the German camp personnel. Another advance group made preparations for the arrival of the refugees in East Fresia.
From 2nd to 5th November 1947, the inhabitants of Pöppendorf camp were taken by lorry to Bad Schwartau station. From here 2,342 people were taken by trains to former military barracks in Emden. Several days later the inhabitants of the Am Stau camp moved to former navy barracks in Sengwarden.
Shortly before the re-quartering of the Pöppendorf camp inhabitants the artist Aberhard Schrammen (1886-1947), living in Bad Schwartau, was commissioned to photograph the Jewish refugee children before their departure. The British camp command hoped that these photographs would enable them to make good the previous unsucessful attempt at identification of Hungarian children in the camps. The former Bauhaus student (German school of architecture and applied arts founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius on experimental principles of functionalism and truth to materials. Closed by the Nazis in 1933), employed from the 1930s onward as a press photographer, travelled daily, in the first weeks of November, to the Pöppendorf camp, to photograph the children. The following four photographs are examples of his work. The photographs were never collected and the Schrammen family did not receive the promised food. Eberhard Schrammen died shortly thereafter. The photographs were forgotten until his son Klaus Schrammen discovered them some years ago.
Many former Exodus 1947 passengers moved to friends somewhere or other in Europe to escape the life in the camps. Others, in small groups, again made their way to Palestine, via the DP camp Belsen-Hohne, in the Lüneburg Heath. There was little change in camp life. The collective experience made the camp inhabitants into a group with a common destiny from which many marriages resulted. Some inhabitants formed kibbutz groups (collective agricultural settlement) for life in Palestine. Youths were sent to a Jewish hostel in Bad Harzburg, in the Harz Mountains, to recuperate, and for their health. Despite good medical care and sufficient food there were deaths. The Jewish camp inhabitants often attended cultural events outside the camps. Relations with the local inhabitants were problem free.
On 14th May 1948, the Jewish State of Israel was established in the former British mandate of Palestine. Consequently, the emigration restrictions were soon abolished. In mid July 1948, following nearly eight months of occupation, the Emden camp was evacuated. The remaining inhabitants of the Emden camp were transferred to other camps, from where they began their journey to Palestine. Women, and the sick, were taken to the Bergen-Hohne DP camp. After some days, the camp in Sengwarden was also cleared. Around 500 Jews were taken by lorry to Bergen-Belsen, from where they arrived in Marseille by train on 15th August 1948.
In Marseille these former Exodus 1947 passengers began anew the sea journey to the land of their hopes.
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.
The attention of the entire world was shortly focused upon the restrictive British emigration policy in Palestine, through the fate of the Exodus 1947 passengers. People worldwide were incensed at British policy, and sympathy grew among United Nations delegates for the creation of a Jewish State.
From the very outset, in planning the Exodus 1947 operation, the Haganah had calculated on this reaction, as the President Warfield never had a real chance of landing all its 4,554 passengers, unimpeded, in Palestine.
Already by 14th February 1947, the British government had decided to return its mandate for Palestine to the UNO, wherupon the UN appointed a special committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). This Special Committee (UNSCOP) was to find a solution to the conflict between the Arabs and the ever growing Jewish population in Palestine. The Committee was also to make proposals for the future destiny of Jewish Displaced Persons.
When the Exodus 1947 was boarded off the coast of Palestine this UNSCOP was sitting in the British
mandate of Palestine. Committee members observed the disembarkation of the Exodus 1947 in Haifa. They
asked Rev. Grauen two questions: Did the British attack in international waters? He answered: Yes.
Did the refugees defend themselves with guns? He answered: No. The refugees were however prepared
to give up their lives in their attempt to enter Palestine.
There are grounds for the supposition that the dramatic experience of the Exodus
tragedy led to the majority vote of this Special Committee to divide Palestine into an Arab and a
Jewish state. On 29th November 1947, the United Nations Assembly voted according to the Special
Committee's recommendation. The way was thereby smoothed for the foundation of a Jewish state.
On 14th May 1948, one day before the end of the British mandate of Palestine, the National Council of Jews in Palestine and the National Council of the World Zionist Movement in Tel Aviv proclaimed the sovereign State of Israel.
However, a solution to the Palestine conflict was not thereby achieved, and three days later the
long smouldering conflict between Arab and Jew exploded into armed warfare. Five Arab states
declared war on the newly founded State of Israel.
Over 50 years later, peace treaties between Israel and several neighbouring states have yet to
be signed. Despite intensive endeavour on both sides a solution to the conflict has, to this day,
not been achieved.
What became of the Exodus 1947?
In 1952, the wreck of the ship sank off Haifa. The ship's history became the source of Leon Uris'
novel "Exodus", and Otto Preminger's film of the same name. The story of the Exodus became one of
the best known legends of the founding of the State of Israel.
Literature:
Fahlbusch, Jan Henrik, Haake, Sarah, Hurlin, Felix, Kononow, Paul, Krobitsch, Lars: Pöppendorf statt Palästina, Zwangsaufenthalt der Passagiere der "Exodus 1947" in Lübeck, Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 1999.
Siebecke, Horst: Die Schicksalsfahrt der "Exodus 1947", Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
Schwarberg, Günther: Der letzte Fahrt der Exodus. Das Schiff das nicht ankommen sollte. Göttingen, 1997.
Kaniuk, Yoram: Und das Meer teilte sich. Der Kommandant der Exodus. Aus dem Hebräischen v. Markus Lemke. List Verlag, München, 1999.
Holly, David C.: Exodus 1947. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1969.
Exodus 1947, A film by Elizabeth Rodgers and Robby Henson, Cicada Films, New York.