Exodus - Leon Uris [168]
Ari was released in the spring of 1939. He returned home to Yad El pale and gaunt.
Sarah cried in the sanctity of her room after she had seen him. What had her son had from birth but a whip and a gun and tragedy? His Dafna was dead and so many of his comrades were dead—how long would it go on? Sarah vowed she would keep her boy at Yad El forever.
With Haven-Hurst commanding Palestine with an iron fist and open anti-Jewish sentiments the stage was set for the final British betrayal....
There was another commission of inquiry. The three years of Mufti-inspired bloodshed were blamed on Jewish immigration.
Whitehall and Chatham House and Neville Chamberlain, their Prime Minister and renowned appeaser, shocked the world with their pronouncement. The British Government issued a White Paper on the eve of World War II shutting off immigration to the frantic German Jews and stopping Jewish land buying. The appeasers of Munich who had sold Spain and Czechoslovakia down the river had done the same to the Jews of Palestine.
Chapter Seventeen
THE YISHUV WAS ROCKED by the White Paper, the most staggering single blow they had ever received. On the eve of war the British were sealing in the German Jews.
The Maccabees, who had been dormant, suddenly sprang to life. The White Paper brought Jews into the Maccabees by the hundreds. They lashed out in a series of raids, bombing a British officers’ club in Jerusalem and terrorizing the Arabs. They raided a British arsenal and they ambushed several convoys.
General Haven-Hurst completely reversed all previous policies of semi-co-operation with the Jews. The Jewish police were disbanded and the Haganah was driven underground. Leaders of the Yishuv Central and more former Raider men were hauled into court and then thrown into Acre jail.
Ben Gurion again called upon the Yishuv to show the same wisdom and restraint they had shown in the past. He publicly denounced the terror tactics. But even as he spoke there were elements within Haganah who wanted to come into the open and fight. Fearing a showdown would lead to its destruction, Avidan was again forced to hold his army in check.
Barak Ben Canaan was sent to London to join Dr. Chaim Weizmann and the other Zionist negotiators in trying to force a reversal of the White Paper. But the men in Whitehall were determined not to revoke it and thereby incite the Arabs.
In Palestine the Husseini mob was busy again. Despite the fact that Haj Amin was still in exile the rest of the clan was still handling opposition through assassination. The Higher Arab Committee was grabbed by the Mufti’s nephew, Jemal Husseini.
Within Germany the Jewish situation was beyond despair. The Zionists’ organizations were on the verge of collapse as even the most complacent German Jews panicked to get out of the country.
The British were making it as difficult for certain Jews to leave Palestine as for Jews to get in from Germany. They realized that anyone with a Haganah and Aliyah Bet background was a potential agent. When Ari left Palestine on orders from Avidan he had to slip over the Lebanese border at Ha Mishmar and hike to Beirut on foot. He carried the passport and visa of a Jew who had recently arrived in Palestine as a “tourist.” In Beirut, Ari caught a boat for Marseilles. In another week he showed up in Berlin at Zionist headquarters at Number 10 Meinekestrasse.
His orders were: “Get as many Jews out as possible.”
When he arrived in Berlin, Zionist headquarters was a scene of panic and chaos.
The Germans were playing the visa market for all it was worth. The more desperate the Jews became, the higher the price for their freedom. Many families turned over entire fortunes for the privilege of being able to escape from Germany. Visas were forged and stolen—visas were life. The first cruel fact of life was that few