The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine

The story of the real Exodus, the legendary ship that became the symbol of the struggle for a Jewish state, is no less fascinating than the work of fiction bearing her name. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust - 4,500 of them - were denied access to what they considered to be their homeland, and after a brutal battle with more than half a dozen British war ships near the coast of Palestine, the survivors were sent back to Europe. Refusing to disembark, in spite of the generous hospitality offered them by the French government, the Jewish survivors were forcefully expelled to the British-ruled zone in Germany, the charnel house of their people.