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Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation
On July 18, 1947, American journalist Ruth Gruber stood on a wharf in Haifa as the Exodus 1947 limped into harbor. The evening before, this unarmed ship, crammed with more than 4,500 Holocaust survivors, had been rammed and boarded by sailors of the British Navy to prevent her desperate human cargo from seeking refuge in Palestine. Gruber rushed to the scene and began witnessing the events as they unfolded, ultimately spending the next several months pursuing the exiles from port to port on the Mediterranean.
Gruber’s quest produced riveting dispatches and vivid photographs published in the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Post that shaped worldwide perception of the plight of the DPs and arguably influenced the U.N. to create the state of Israel. This gripping book contains Gruber’s moving images and text, plus additional reporting on the wretched camps in Europe where the refugees lived before boarding the Exodus 1947, as well as details of many passengers’ eventual fates. In this edition marking the sixtieth anniversary of the voyage, Gruber’s masterpiece remains as stirring and unforgettable as ever.
Gruber’s quest produced riveting dispatches and vivid photographs published in the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Post that shaped worldwide perception of the plight of the DPs and arguably influenced the U.N. to create the state of Israel. This gripping book contains Gruber’s moving images and text, plus additional reporting on the wretched camps in Europe where the refugees lived before boarding the Exodus 1947, as well as details of many passengers’ eventual fates. In this edition marking the sixtieth anniversary of the voyage, Gruber’s masterpiece remains as stirring and unforgettable as ever.
224 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
About the author
Ruth Gruber
36 books42 followersRuth Gruber was an award-winning Jewish American journalist, photographer, and humanitarian. Born in Brooklyn in 1911, she became the youngest PhD in the world and went on to author nineteen books, including the National Jewish Book Award–winning biography Raquela (1978). She also wrote several memoirs documenting her astonishing experiences, among them Ahead of Time (1991), Inside of Time (2002), and Haven (1983), which documents her role in the rescue of one thousand refugees from Europe and their safe transport to America.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 8, 2020
There are many emotional moments in this telling of the story of the Exodus 1947 by a woman who was there ... it was my original intent to have my fictional character (Anna) follow the path Gruber took from Haifa to Hamburg, but that would not allow me to do justice to Gruber's words ... so I decided to make Gruber a character in my new historical novel-in-progress, to have Anna accompany her, and to have Gruber say and write her beautiful story with full attribution
here are some of Gruber's words ...
... a few people trickled down the gangways, weary and shattered … some were carried on stretchers … British soldiers ripped off bandages to see if wounds were serious enough for hospital … gradually others came … walked to the prison boat ... hand bagged was searched, films taken out of cameras and cameras taken ... water bottles smashed (feared as weapons?) ... mounting piles of duffel bags, potato sacks in which they had packed all their remaining belongings ... the British said the bags would be returned the next day in Cyprus ... depth bombs exploded to discourage underwater swimmers ... refugees were searched and sprayed with DDT
... refugees would not come off the ships … instead raised a white flag of Zion with its Star of David … these were Jews who were unafraid of the might of Britain … a refugee woman needed an emergency appendectomy … Swiss doctors from the International Red Cross and refugee doctors on the ship ... I cannot operate here ... you may die here ... she refused to go ashore ... the British can't do anything with them ... they turn a jail into a backyard for kids' diapers
... I realized that the babies who gave meaning to this whole exodus … it was for them that their parents had languished in DP camps, sailed on the Exodus 1947 and other ships, and were now being returned to Germany
... but they didn't stay there… led by men and women of the Palmach and Palyam who had traveled with the on the prison ships, posing as refugees … smuggled out of the camps … onto trucks driven by Haganah ... within a few months, the bulk of the Exodus refugees were in Palestine ... they were there on May 15, when their nation was born
here are some of Gruber's words ...
... a few people trickled down the gangways, weary and shattered … some were carried on stretchers … British soldiers ripped off bandages to see if wounds were serious enough for hospital … gradually others came … walked to the prison boat ... hand bagged was searched, films taken out of cameras and cameras taken ... water bottles smashed (feared as weapons?) ... mounting piles of duffel bags, potato sacks in which they had packed all their remaining belongings ... the British said the bags would be returned the next day in Cyprus ... depth bombs exploded to discourage underwater swimmers ... refugees were searched and sprayed with DDT
... refugees would not come off the ships … instead raised a white flag of Zion with its Star of David … these were Jews who were unafraid of the might of Britain … a refugee woman needed an emergency appendectomy … Swiss doctors from the International Red Cross and refugee doctors on the ship ... I cannot operate here ... you may die here ... she refused to go ashore ... the British can't do anything with them ... they turn a jail into a backyard for kids' diapers
... I realized that the babies who gave meaning to this whole exodus … it was for them that their parents had languished in DP camps, sailed on the Exodus 1947 and other ships, and were now being returned to Germany
... but they didn't stay there… led by men and women of the Palmach and Palyam who had traveled with the on the prison ships, posing as refugees … smuggled out of the camps … onto trucks driven by Haganah ... within a few months, the bulk of the Exodus refugees were in Palestine ... they were there on May 15, when their nation was born
August 10, 2024
Incredible truth about 4500 survivors of the holocaust and their struggles to reach Israel. The British wouldn't allow them off their ship. They were treated like prisoners, lied to numerous times, possessions destroyed, crammed into a cage with inadequate facilities and finally brought to Germany where they were kept in winter camps. However, they were determined to get to Israel and gradually escaped the camps and made their way to Israel!! Ruth Gruber's photos document their long, difficult struggles.
May 15, 2014
I highly recommend this book. The photos and personal stories make this a great read. I believe the story of the Holocaust is part of history that has caused us as Americans to cry, ponder the cruelty of the world, been the 'stuff' of our nightmares. Not until I read this book did I ever think about the struggles of the Jewish people after they were liberated from the Death Camps. The Exodus 1947 was a ship boarded by 4500 Jewish refugees that sailed to Israel only to be turned away by the British enforcing the blockade. None were allowed into Palestine but were returned to Germany to live in 'Displaced Persons' camps until after the State of Israel was created in 1948.
June 14, 2017
Heart-wrenching. I only wish she had worked harder to get the British side of the story. I'd like to understand what went wrong, because it's too easy to just assume they were evil and callous.
November 15, 2018
Unhappy story of Holocaust survivors being denied entry into the just-forming Israel. Actually, they were denied entry into almost anywhere except kind France and refugee camps elsewhere.
April 8, 2015
Exodus 1947
A timely book written years ago. I've had this book on my TBR list for some time, and decided to read it now because of current mid-eastern political problems. I read the novel, "Exodus" by Leon Uris many years ago and knew some of the history of the founding of the state of Israel. However, this book by Ruth Gruber tells the appalling story of the ship, Exodus and the heart-breaking story of the displaced Jews that survived the Holocaust. In 1999, Gruber's original book published in 1948 was updated with many photographs added. The new edition also tells the story of the Displaced Persons, who lived in crowded camps, some former Nazi army camps. They were a people with no place to go, often with no family members who survived. They wanted a place to call home, a Jewish State.
"From the end of the war in May 1945 until the birth of Israel in May 1948, nearly seventy thousand Holocaust survivors found their way out of the DP camps, crossing borders in the dead of night, trekking through forests and across the Alps until they reached the secret ports in southern France and Italy. " p.4
I had never thought of the plight of those who survived, but their suffering went on for many years after WWII.
Gruber was a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Post. Before the war's end she had helped escort 1000 European Jews to the US on a secret mission for President Roosevelt. So Gruber knew these DPs had no place to live and that they wanted their own country in Palestine. She was in Haifa when the Exodus 1947, an unarmed ship with more than 4500 Holocaust survivors came into the harbor. The ship had been rammed by the British Navy and boarded by them resulting in injuries and the death of some on board. Ruth Gruber followed the trial of those aboard the Exodus 1947 as they were forcibly transferred to another ship and sailed toward Cyprus, where another armed camp held those who were trying to make it to Palestine. Undoubtedly Gruber's writing and photographs helped inform the world and swayed opinion of the need for a Jewish state.
I learned so much from this book, and I encourage everyone that doesn't know of this history to read the book
A timely book written years ago. I've had this book on my TBR list for some time, and decided to read it now because of current mid-eastern political problems. I read the novel, "Exodus" by Leon Uris many years ago and knew some of the history of the founding of the state of Israel. However, this book by Ruth Gruber tells the appalling story of the ship, Exodus and the heart-breaking story of the displaced Jews that survived the Holocaust. In 1999, Gruber's original book published in 1948 was updated with many photographs added. The new edition also tells the story of the Displaced Persons, who lived in crowded camps, some former Nazi army camps. They were a people with no place to go, often with no family members who survived. They wanted a place to call home, a Jewish State.
"From the end of the war in May 1945 until the birth of Israel in May 1948, nearly seventy thousand Holocaust survivors found their way out of the DP camps, crossing borders in the dead of night, trekking through forests and across the Alps until they reached the secret ports in southern France and Italy. " p.4
I had never thought of the plight of those who survived, but their suffering went on for many years after WWII.
Gruber was a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Post. Before the war's end she had helped escort 1000 European Jews to the US on a secret mission for President Roosevelt. So Gruber knew these DPs had no place to live and that they wanted their own country in Palestine. She was in Haifa when the Exodus 1947, an unarmed ship with more than 4500 Holocaust survivors came into the harbor. The ship had been rammed by the British Navy and boarded by them resulting in injuries and the death of some on board. Ruth Gruber followed the trial of those aboard the Exodus 1947 as they were forcibly transferred to another ship and sailed toward Cyprus, where another armed camp held those who were trying to make it to Palestine. Undoubtedly Gruber's writing and photographs helped inform the world and swayed opinion of the need for a Jewish state.
I learned so much from this book, and I encourage everyone that doesn't know of this history to read the book
August 29, 2015
After reading Ruth Gruber's outstanding biography "Raqula: Woman of Israel," and "Exodus" by Leon Uris, I was grateful to get a hold of this book. Gruber is a marvelous woman in her own right, earning her Ph.D at age 20. She was on dock as a correspondent when the ship Exodus and its 4,500 refugee passengers was escorted to Haifa by the British after the British Royal Navy had rammed the ship twice. The ship sat in dock for some time until the WW II refugees were put on three prison ships and sent, not to Cyprus and the British concentration camps as they had been told, but to France and then to Germany. She follows the prisoners and chronicles, with 101 of her own photos, these refugee Jews, who were deprived of food, water, clothing, comfort, etc., by the British. The prisoners finally are forced off the prison ships in Germany and put into two prison camps, where, a few at a time, sneaked away from the British, and with the help of free Jews, got to Israel by the time the nation was born on May 15, 1848. A remarkable book but sobering. And, Ruth Gruber, a remarkable Jewish woman, is still alive at 103 years of age.
April 15, 2009
This book was a complete shock to me. I had no clue such injustices happened to the Jewish people after World War 2 by the British. The author takes you back to when she was there to witness the travesty that the Jewish people aboard Exodus 1947 had to go through just to try to seek their freedom. During this time, Jewish people fleeing war torn Europe wanted to get to Palestine, but the British controlled all immigration and they purposely kept the number each month to a assinine number. The people aboard this boat were trying to sneak into Palestine but were attacked by British warships and forced to surrender. This book takes you through the rest of their ordeal as they suffered yet again to the hateful prejuidices that people have against them. A truly eye opening read that everybody should read. Every library should have this in their collection.
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January 27, 2011A tragic time post World War II where liberated "displaced persons" from European concentration camps had nowhere to go and were prevented from entering Palestine by the British.
February 2, 2011
Wow! Amazing author! Amazing photos! Amazing story! Will definately be reading more by this author and about this subject.
August 2, 2013
Excellant book about the real Exodus - I recommend this to anyone interested in WW2 or Israel history.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews