Studies in the History of Zionism

The Struggle against the British -
Settlement and Illegal Immigration: Background Text

Educational Objectives

To examine and evaluate:

1. Illegal immigration against the background of the Shoah period and British Mandate policy;
2. The Berihah movement in the post-war context;
3. The saga of illegal immigration by sea;
4. The multiple role of Hityashvut [settlement] in the struggle against the British.

Introduction

Throughout the Second World War, the leaders of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael) and the Zionist Movement believed that their collaboration with the British would lead to establishment of a Jewish state, following victory over Germany. Once the war ended, however, it became clear that the British had no intention of retreating from their pro-Arab policy articulated in the White Paper of 1939 and the 1940 Land Law (restrictions on acquisition of land by Jews).

The Jewish Yishuv and the Zionist Movement launched an all-out struggle with the objective of bringing of the British Mandate to an end and establishing a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.

The present unit focuses on two central elements of this confrontation:

1. illegal immigration -- in Hebrew, the ha'apalah -- the culmination of the Jewish struggle against the White Paper;
2. Jewish settlement in the face of draconian regulations prohibiting almost all sale of land to Jews.

1. Illegal Immigration during the Second World War

Illegal immigration, the ha'apalah, continued parallel to entry under legal immigration quotas permitted by the British, who controlled the number of legal immigrants by issuing a limited number of immigration visas (known in Hebrew as "certificatim").

Illegal immigration actually began before the Second World War. Beginning with Churchill's White Paper of 1922, the British limited the entry of Jews to Mandate Palestine and set quotas for immigration visas. With the inauguration of this policy, Jews began entering the country illegally.

After Hitler's rise to power, organized illegal immigration operations began. The first such operation was the illegal immigration ship "Vellos", which brought some 350 immigrants. Following the success of the "Vellos", additional ships arrived. Before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, thirteen ships had arrived bearing more than 15,000 illegal immigrants. Two additional ships were turned back by the British, and two ships sank.

The MacDonald White Paper of May of 1939 had set a total quota of 75,000 immigrants for the following five years. With the promulgation of this White Paper, the Zionist leadership declared illegal immigration the primary means for opening the gates of Eretz Yisrael. On the eve of World War II, the Haganah established the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, which became the main body involved in illegal immigration.

With the outbreak of war in Europe, convoys of illegal immigrant ships began arriving at the shores of the Palestine. The British, however, did not rescind their White Paper policy even after it became clear that the Nazis were carrying out a policy of genocide in Europe.

Indeed, the British took stringent measures to block the path of the refugee: as punishment for illegal immigration, the British reduced the legal immigration quotas, and there were months when they refused to issue any immigration visas at all.

The British also had a number of methods for dealing with the illegal Jewish immigrants, who had fled certain death in Europe: some refugees were transferred to detention camps in Palestine, and some were exiled to Cyprus and the Mauritias -- a British colony in the Indian Ocean.

The tragic case of the "Patria" is an example of British refusal to budge from their policy.

In November 1940, three ships bearing a total of 3,600 illegal immigrants reached Palestine. The British mounted an extreme reaction, transferring the passengers of these ships to a ship named "Patria", which was ordered to transport the "illegals" to detention camps in Mauritias in the Indian Ocean. The Haganah decided that the expulsion of illegal immigrants must be prevented at all costs and succeeded in smuggling a mine aboard the ship. The mine exploded as planned, but the Haganah had miscalculated the amount of explosive required: contrary to plan, the ships was not merely disabled but sank rapidly. Some 200 persons were trapped inside and drowned.

Following a storm of international public opinion, the authorities permitted the survivors of the "Patria" to remain in Palestine, but illegal immigrants from the ship "Atlantic" as well as other ships were deported to the island of Mauritius. After the tragic "Struma" incident in February 1942 (an illegal immigrant ship, all of whose 769 passengers except one drowned), illegal immigration by sea came to a halt.

During the war, there was also considerable illegal immigration via overland routes. The illegal immigrants -- in this case, Jews from Islamic countries -- reached Mandate Palestine's northern and eastern frontiers by the ancient land route from Iraq through the Syrian desert. Jewish soldiers serving in the British Army in the Middle East and North Africa aided overland illegal immigration.

During the war, some 16,000 illegal immigrants arrived by sea and another 4,000 by land. This immigration was conducted under the most tragic circumstances, but it demonstrated the resolve of the Yishuv to bring the immigrants to Eretz Yisrael, and the fierce desire of the immigrants themselves to reach the country. Illegal immigration in this period laid the foundation for the great waves of post-war illegal immigration.

2. Berihah -- Flight from Europe

At the end of World War II, a mass movement of Jewish immigration began spontaneously. Some 250,000 Jewish refugees -- Holocaust survivors from Poland, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia -- began making their way towards central and southern Europe with Eretz Yisrae as their destination. This mass migration of Jews converging on the ports of Italy -- moving through all of Europe by day and by night -- became known as the Berihah, "the flight."

The initiative to organize the few surviving Jews, wherever they happened to be and to forge a route to the land of Israel emerged spontaneously in the Polish territories liberated towards the end of 1944. Those who organized the Berihah were the remnants of the Zionist and pioneering youth movements, former Jewish partisans and ghetto fighters.

In November 1944, the Berihah managed to make contact with a shaliach -- an emissary -- from Eretz Yisrael. It employed all available means -- illegal and quasi-legal. From early 1945, the way was paved for the Berihah from Poland, via Slovakia, to Romania, from where the refugees hoped to emigrate to Palestine. When it became clear that it was impossible to sail there from Romania, the Berihah, with the help of Jewish soldiers from Eretz Yisrael and the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, began channeling people to the shores of Italy.

The Berihah movement spread quickly to the Displaced Persons camps in Germany and Austria. (At the end of the Second World War, one million persons classified as "not repatrifiable" remained in Germany and Austria - one quarter of all Displaced Persons in Europe were Jewish).

In May 1945, the Merkaz Hagolah (Diaspora Center) was established in Italy to smuggle refugees out of that country and convey them to Eretz Yisrael. While stationed in Belgium and Holland, where it had been transferred at the end of the war, the Jewish Brigade continued to play an important role in the Berihah, and in the care of Holocaust survivors in DP camps.

At the same time, shlichim from the Yishuv sent by the Mossad leAliyah Bet became involved. Jewish refugees were organized into groups and transferred to towns near the Italian border, where they awaited an opportunity to cross over. Illegal border crossing was accomplished in various ways: forged documents, bribery, and understandings with the authorities and local officials. The stream of refugees was channeled to Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Italy. From Poland, the refugees moved via Slovakia to Austria and from there, to Italy.

In the summer of 1946, in the city of Kielce, Poland a Pogrom of astonishing cruelty broke out, in the light of day and in full sight of the local police (and perhaps with their active participation). Jews who had survived the German occupation met their deaths at the hands of Polish rioters. The ax blows to the heads of the victims put an abrupt end to the illusions of all who had hoped to resume lives where they had left off in Poland. In the wake of the Kielce pogrom, some 250,000 Jews began fleeing towards the Polish borders. By October 1946, some 150,000 Jews had left Poland, to collect in DP camps in Germany and Austria. From there, the Berihah led them by every possible route to western Europe - mainly to Italy - where they embarked illegally for Palestine. Unfortunately, the gates of Mandate Palestine remained closed.

The Berihah's routes were difficult and dangerous.

• Border crossings on the way to the coast were accomplished fairly often with border patrols turning a blind eye. On other occasions, however, crossing a border entailed the risk of deportation back to the immigrtants' point of departure.
• Illegal immigrants also traveled difficult and treacherous routes through the mountains of Europe. This, however, did not deter the heads of families or even the parents of infants from accepting all the travails of the of the harrowing journey.
• Once they reached the coast, the imigrants would wait in a transit camp for a ship to take them to Palestine. When the ship arrived, their troubles were far from over, for the British -- true, to their policy -- refused to open the land of Israel to the survivors of the Holocaust.

3.a. The Illegal Immigration Apparatus by Sea

Illegal immigration by sea, which had ceased after the tragic sinking of the "Struma", resumed the end of 1944, when Jews fleeing Europe reached the coast of Italy. There, they met members of the Jewish Brigade, and an illegal immigration network was established under the leadership of the Mossad leAliyah Bet.

The absence of political and economic stability in Europe after the war offered a comfortable environment for setting up the complex Mossad leAliyah Bet network in Italy, France, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and other countries.

• The Berihah network acquired ships; equipped and sailed them; brought the illegal immigrants to various ports; and sent the immigrants on to the land of Israel.
• Agents of the Mossad leAliyah Bet manned and commanded the ships themselves.

After the fleeing Jews completed their difficult trek over the Berihah routes, there awaited them a sea odyssey involving considerable hazards and suffering: despite the best efforts of the organizers, conditions on the ships were difficult in the extreme - the bunks allotted to the passengers were never over half a meter (19.5 inches) wide and several levels were built one above the other; overcrowding and sanitary conditions were nearly unbearable; food and water were limited. Under these conditions, the illegal immigrants set sail on a sea voyage which often stretched from an expected few days into a nightmare lasting several weeks.

The illegal immigration network joined up with the Berihah network: although the two were ostensibly separate organizations, in practice, they both functioned under the authority of the Mossad leAliyah Bet of the Haganah. There were divisions of responsibility, as mentioned:

• The Berihah network was responsible for conveying the immigrants to their departure points.
• The illegal immigration apparatus was responsible for the sea voyage.
• A third body involved in the operation was the Palmah, which was responsible for disembarkment of the immigrants and entry into the country; for securing the landing area from possible British intervention; and for dispersal of the immigrants throughout country - and hiding them, if necessary.

Between the years 1945-1948, some 66 ships holding 70,000 illegal immigrants set sail for the shores of Mandate Palestine:
64 of the ships sailed from Europe;
2 from North Africa;
40 from Italy.

After the initial successes of the Mossad leAliyah Bet in 1945 and 1946, the British intensified their sea patrols in their attempts to obstruct the Berihah. When they failed to prevent the ships from sailing by influencing governments controlling ports of departure, the British were left with only one course of action: to use the British Navy to seal the coast of Palestine. Thus, the glorious British Navy was mobilized to fight rickety immigration ships overloaded with the survivors of the Holocaust.

In this confrontation -- between the British Navy with the best of manpower and equipment, and the refugees, who had nothing but their stubbornness and willingness to sacrifice -- the refugees did not stand a chance. Ship after ship was captured and taken to the port of Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transferred to a detention camp in Atlit (near Haifa), and released in accordance with the quotas for legal immigration (during this period the British government provided 1,500 immigration visas per month, a number which was, of course, far inferior to the number of potential immigrants). From fall 1946, illegal immigrants were deported to Cyprus. There, in British detention camps, behind barbed wire, the tribulations of Holocaust survivors came full circle. In all, out of 70,000 illegal immigrants, some 55,000 were deported to detention camps.

3.b. The Saga of the Illegal Immigration Ships

* In April 1946, the British Army prevented an illegal immigration ship from sailing from the Italian port of La Spezia. The illegal immigrants on the ship proclaimed that their only desire was to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. When the British proposed to evacuate them to a camp near the coast, they began a hunger strike and threatened to set the ship afire. This decision aroused waves of empathy among the Italians, anger in the international press, and identification of the Yishuv with the illegal immigrants. The outcome was that the British permitted the ship to sail for Palestine under escort of a British naval vessel.

* The illegal immigrant ship, "Chaim Arlosoroff" sailed from Marseilles in southern France to Sweden. There, several hundred illegal immigrants, most of them young women, boarded the ship. From Sweden, the ship sailed on the longest voyage of the illegal immigration. On board were 1,350 illegal immigrants. The ship was discovered by the British, and six British destroyers closed in on it. Nevertheless, the "Chaim Arlosoroff" continued to elude its British pursuers and continued on its way to Haifa. Near Haifa, the ship ran aground. Some passengers jumped into the water, but all were caught by the British. All were deported to Cyprus.

* The ship, "Theodore Herzl", carrying 2,650 passengers, was one of the largest illegal immigration ships. It was stopped by the British. In a battle that ensued between the British and the immigrants, three immigrants were killed, and fifteen injured. The rest were deported to Cyprus.

* The "Exodus" became a symbol of the heroic struggle of the immigrants against the stone-heartedness and moral obtuseness of the British authorities.
On the 11th July, 1947, the "Exodus" sailed from France, with 4, 500 illegal immigrants, most of them refugees from the DP camps of Germany. When the ship entered open waters, a British battleship pulled alongside and followed it all the way to the coast of Mandate Palestine. When it reached a distance of 40 kilometers from the coast of Tel Aviv, six British destroyers blocked its progress. British sailors boarded the ship, and a battle broke out between the British and the immigrants. The immigrants used iron bars, pegs, screws, nails, bottles, and cans of food, which they threw at the British. The British fired on them, and three immigrants were killed, with three wounded.

The ship was towed to the port of Haifa, and the immigrants were transferred to deportation ships. Everyone presumed them to be bound for Cyprus, but the British thought otherwise: in order to break illegal immigration, the British had decided to return the immigrants to their port of departure in southern France. When the deportation ships reached France, however, the immigrants refused to disembark and proclaimed a hunger strike.

The British then sent the ships to Hamburg, Germany, where the immigrants were removed from the ships by force and transferred to detention camps within the British zone of occupied Germany. The entire world, including British citizens themselves, was shocked, by this battle in which violent force was applied to subdue people who had already plumbed the depths of human suffering - and became the means of triumph over justice.

The perseverance of Holocaust survivors in trying to reach Mandate Palestine, and the resolve of the Yishuv to continue immigration brought the need for a Jewish state to the attention of the world.

4. The Struggle against Britain through Hityashvut [settlement]

* By the end of the 1930s, settlement had become a leading means of struggle against the Arabs of Palestine (homah umigdal - tower and stockade* settlements).

* During the 1940s, settlement became a means of struggle against the British, too.

* Settlement was also of prime strategic importance, while illegal immigrants could also be hidden in these settlements. Members of the settlements protected the immigrants from being identified by the British.

* Settlement was an expression of the struggle against the White Paper and an evasion of the Land Law (Hok haKarka'ot) of 1940, which decreed that Jews could purchase no more than 5% of the land of Palestine. In 1940, 7 new settlements were erected and by the end of the war some 40 new settlements, mainly kibbutzim, had been established.

* Settlement activity did not cease during the stormiest period of the war, continuing across the entire the country.

* Settlement activity was planned; it aimed at settling "prohibited" areas, supporting existing settlements, and answering security needs.

After the war, the price of land quadrupled. Extremist Arab organizations threatened land-owners not to sell to Jews. Despite all the difficulties, between the year 1945-1947 more than 40 new settlements broke ground, mainly in areas where Jews were not permitted to purchase land.

After publication of a British Foreign Office and the American State Department plan seeking to retain the Negev as a British neutral zone, it was decided to begin settling the Negev immediately. On the night following Yom Kippur, 6 October 1946, 11 homah umigdal (tower and stockade) settlements went up in the Negev. These 11 settlement points subsequently served as important bases for the Jewish military forces who stopped the Egyptian invasion during the War of Independence, and they had significant impact on where Israel's western border was ultimately drawn.

Just as illegal immigration had important political objectives in addition to the actual immigration to Israel, settlement activities had additional objectives beyond settlement:

* The political objective was to ensure that, when the time came, all land that had been acquired would belong to the Jewish state that would arise.

* The security objective was to create a network of settlements close enough to one another to come to each other's aid and act as a wall of defense against the Arabs.

* Settlement also strengthened the economic infrastructure of the Yishuv's Jewish community.

Another front in the battle against the British was the armed struggle conducted by the various underground movements in Palestine, which reached its peak between the years 1945-1947, but this merits a separate discussion.

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