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We were all ordered to pack our bags and have them ready the first thing in the morning. The order sent a thrill of excitement through the ship. That night everybody seemed to be singing. We all thought that the sudden instructions meant that we would land in Palestine the next day. On the foredeck, the "pioneers" (halutzim) danced a tremendous "hora." They joined hands and swung around the deck, stamping out the beat and leaping with joy until it seemed they would crash through the deck. I could not bear to watch any longer and broke into the circle between two of my friends and danced with them. We danced until we were exhausted. Cake and coffee were served. The people sang Hebrew songs. I do not understand Hebrew and kept asking them to sing some of the Yiddish songs I had heard in Europe in the camps. Finally, one of the "shomrim" (guards) explained: "Those songs are too sad and bitter. They are the songs of the exile. Don't ask us to sing them. These Hebrew songs are the songs of our new life." The Palestinian emissary sang a love song in Arabic which he had learned from Arab neighbors. The immigrants listened entranced. This, too, was Palestine for them. When I went on deck the next morning I saw the other boat a few hundred yards away from us. It was a wooden boat flying the Turkish flag. The refugees saw it with surprise. Soon word spread that we were to transfer to this other ship for the last stage of our journey. .... Soon our little wooden boat was alone on that vast and ancient sea. She sailed along wearily, low in the water from the weight of her unusual cargo. Her decks and holds were packed tightly with people. Sick women were lying in the wheelhouse, the only cool place on ship. To move around the ship was a slow and painful job. One did not try it often. One had to climb over people sitting or lying on deck. It was hard to avoid stepping on them. They lay exhausted from the fierce heat. All were hungry and thirsty. That Turkish boat might have been a fine boat in the days of the Sultan Abdul Hamid, but its engines now shook as if they would break down any minute. It was horribly overloaded and leaned crazily in the water whenever there were more people on one side than the other. We had to make a fateful decision. Should we try to run the British blockade or should we ask for help? The "Haganah" emissary on board was afraid that some mishap might capsize or sink the ship with all aboard. The British blockading forces by that time on the sea and in the air were so numerous that even a fast ship could hardly hope to land its cargo secretly in Palestine. He decided it would be best to send out an SOS and give ourselves up voluntarily to the British rather than risk a disaster. .... The next day I got up at four o'clock and climbed up to the wheelhouse. The sky was growing light. At 4:35 the red sun rose out of the sea to reveal two surprises. There were high mountains on our left which I thought must be the mountains of Lebanon, but they turned out to be those of Cyprus. Our Turkish captain, perhaps losing his nerve, had been taking us away from Palestine. The second surprise, about a mile away on our left, was a British destroyer. It was waiting to close in on us like a wolf of the sea. I.F. Stone is an American Jewish journalist who accompanied a shipload of so-called "illegal" immigrants to Palestine in 1946. The above extracts have been taken from his book "Underground to Palestine." New settlers ship "EXODUS" Haifa, 1947 |
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Transferring Ship