Britain's Holocaust shame: The voyage of the Exodus

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.

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