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The Redemption of the Unwanted: From the Liberation of the Death Camps to the Founding of Israel
New York. 1983. St. Martin's. Marek. 21x14. 306p.
- GenresHistory
334 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1983
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February 21, 2020
This book takes us from the horrific events of the Holocaust to the the rebirth of the State of Israel like a phoenix from the ashes of the Nazi genocide, and the glorious victory of the Jews (many of them holocaust survivors) against 5 Arab armies.
After World War II, there were only 3 million Jews left in Europe from a pre-war population of 9 million.
Of the survivors some had lived through the horrors of the concentration camps, others had remained hidden. Most where malnourished and suffering from physical and psychological trauma.
Unwanted by the populations of the lands where they had come from, in countries like Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe there were pogroms against Jewish survivors returning to their homes.
The survivors were spurned by a distracted Roosevelt and despised by the British.
Palestine- the ancient Land of Israel- from where their ancestors had come, but the Arabs where determined not to have them their and the British did all they could to help the Arabs in keeping them out.
Thus came the Bricha, a heroic and clandestine operation to smuggle hundreds of thousands of Jewish holocaust survivors into the Land of Israel.
Despite overwhelming odds and the opposition of powerful forces, the State of Israel did come into being.
This book tells how the State of Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
Chapter 1 describes the horrors uncovered by the Allied forces after the liberation of the concentration and death camps in Central Europe.
Chapter 2 tells of the Nazi extermination camps in Poland and the allied inaction in doing anything to prevent the Nazi genocide.
In the last year of the war, as the horrors of Auschwitz became common knowledge, the Jewish Agency leadership made urgent appeals to the western Allies to bomb the approaches to the death camps. There had been bases captured in Italy which could be used. Although it was unlikely that the bombings could put the camps out of commission, such attacks would necessarily slow down the massive deportations.
The Allies responded that the cost where too great and the diversions too costly.
The horrors of the Nazi mass murders are starkly revealed in the early chapters of this book.
The following three chapters are about the resistance by Jews to Nazism, most of the resistance being led by Zionist movements; Christian efforts to rescue Jews during the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials.
Chapters Six and Seven tell of the Bricha and Displaced Persons Camps and "illegal" immigration of Jews to Palestine.
During World War II the British had turned away tens of thousands of Jews from Palestine, who were fleeing from the Nazi terror.
Due to British actions refugee ships such as the Patria and the Struma sank in the Mediterranean killing thousands of Jewish men, women and children aboard.
After World War II, the British government did all they could to prevent Jews entering the Land of Israel and we read of the obsessive hatred of Ernest Bevin for Jews and Zionism.
Richard Crossman interviewed Bevin and reported on Bevin's remarks which reflected a world view corresponding to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That world Jewry had orchestrated an international conspiracy against Britain and Bevin.
From Bevin's tirade Crossman concluded correctly that Bevin was insane on the issue.
Bevin had also declared that Britain would look after Arab interests in Palestine and that he wished all Jews would be "gathered up into the bosom of Abraham".
There were still voices of conscience in Britain.
Member of Parliament Eleanor Rathbone during a debate in the House of Commons on December 14 1943 declared that "If it had not been for the restrictions placed on immigration to Palestine in the prewar years, even before the Palestinian White Paper, imposed partly for economic reasons and partly to please the Arabs, tens of thousands of men, women and children who now lie in bloody graves would long ago have been among their kindred in Palestine.
That is something I shall never forget and I hope the House will never forget it either."
The book continues with the struggle of the Jews against the British and Arabs in the Palestine Mandate, the diplomatic efforts around partition and the support for the rebirth of Israel by Harry Truman, the partition vote of November 1947 and the resulting invasion of the fledgling Jewish State by 5 Arab armies:
Secretary of the Arab League Azzam Pasha thundered that "There will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre that will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
Meanwhile Britain turned over forts and weapons to the Arabs before pulling out of Palestine, threatened intervention during the War of Independence against Israel, and tried to block Israel's entry into the United Nations.
Israel was reborn despite the efforts of Britain and the Arabs.
After World War II, there were only 3 million Jews left in Europe from a pre-war population of 9 million.
Of the survivors some had lived through the horrors of the concentration camps, others had remained hidden. Most where malnourished and suffering from physical and psychological trauma.
Unwanted by the populations of the lands where they had come from, in countries like Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe there were pogroms against Jewish survivors returning to their homes.
The survivors were spurned by a distracted Roosevelt and despised by the British.
Palestine- the ancient Land of Israel- from where their ancestors had come, but the Arabs where determined not to have them their and the British did all they could to help the Arabs in keeping them out.
Thus came the Bricha, a heroic and clandestine operation to smuggle hundreds of thousands of Jewish holocaust survivors into the Land of Israel.
Despite overwhelming odds and the opposition of powerful forces, the State of Israel did come into being.
This book tells how the State of Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
Chapter 1 describes the horrors uncovered by the Allied forces after the liberation of the concentration and death camps in Central Europe.
Chapter 2 tells of the Nazi extermination camps in Poland and the allied inaction in doing anything to prevent the Nazi genocide.
In the last year of the war, as the horrors of Auschwitz became common knowledge, the Jewish Agency leadership made urgent appeals to the western Allies to bomb the approaches to the death camps. There had been bases captured in Italy which could be used. Although it was unlikely that the bombings could put the camps out of commission, such attacks would necessarily slow down the massive deportations.
The Allies responded that the cost where too great and the diversions too costly.
The horrors of the Nazi mass murders are starkly revealed in the early chapters of this book.
The following three chapters are about the resistance by Jews to Nazism, most of the resistance being led by Zionist movements; Christian efforts to rescue Jews during the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials.
Chapters Six and Seven tell of the Bricha and Displaced Persons Camps and "illegal" immigration of Jews to Palestine.
During World War II the British had turned away tens of thousands of Jews from Palestine, who were fleeing from the Nazi terror.
Due to British actions refugee ships such as the Patria and the Struma sank in the Mediterranean killing thousands of Jewish men, women and children aboard.
After World War II, the British government did all they could to prevent Jews entering the Land of Israel and we read of the obsessive hatred of Ernest Bevin for Jews and Zionism.
Richard Crossman interviewed Bevin and reported on Bevin's remarks which reflected a world view corresponding to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That world Jewry had orchestrated an international conspiracy against Britain and Bevin.
From Bevin's tirade Crossman concluded correctly that Bevin was insane on the issue.
Bevin had also declared that Britain would look after Arab interests in Palestine and that he wished all Jews would be "gathered up into the bosom of Abraham".
There were still voices of conscience in Britain.
Member of Parliament Eleanor Rathbone during a debate in the House of Commons on December 14 1943 declared that "If it had not been for the restrictions placed on immigration to Palestine in the prewar years, even before the Palestinian White Paper, imposed partly for economic reasons and partly to please the Arabs, tens of thousands of men, women and children who now lie in bloody graves would long ago have been among their kindred in Palestine.
That is something I shall never forget and I hope the House will never forget it either."
The book continues with the struggle of the Jews against the British and Arabs in the Palestine Mandate, the diplomatic efforts around partition and the support for the rebirth of Israel by Harry Truman, the partition vote of November 1947 and the resulting invasion of the fledgling Jewish State by 5 Arab armies:
Secretary of the Arab League Azzam Pasha thundered that "There will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre that will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".
Meanwhile Britain turned over forts and weapons to the Arabs before pulling out of Palestine, threatened intervention during the War of Independence against Israel, and tried to block Israel's entry into the United Nations.
Israel was reborn despite the efforts of Britain and the Arabs.
Displaying 1 of 1 review