This is a black and white photograph of the Aliyah Bet ship Theodor Herzl on the Haifa shore before it was sent to Cyprus by the British in April 1947. A large banner is hanging from the side of the ship and reads in English: “The Germans Destroyed our Families and Homes Don’t You Destroy our Hopes.” The ship was traveling from France to pre-State Israel in 1947 with 2,641 Holocaust survivors on board. The Theodor Herzl was intercepted by the British and rerouted to Cyprus, where the passengers were interned in detention camps.
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The Theodor Herzl ship – The Theodor Herzl was named after the Zionist visionary, Theodor Herzl, and after the original ship with that name that was used to bring Holocaust survivors to pre-State Israel as part of the Aliyah Bet (or “illegal immigration”). The first Theodor Herzl was bought by the Mossad for the purpose of bringing 2,641 refugees from France to Eretz Yisrael. The ship left France on April 2, 1947. On April 13, the ship was intercepted by the British, and a battle ensued in which three passengers were killed. The wounded passengers were taken to Atlit in northern Israel, where they were kept in a British detention camp; the rest of the passengers were deported to Cyprus. The second Theodor Herzl was owned by the Israeli shipping company Zim. It was built in 1957 and paid for by the German reparation funds. Its first voyage was from Hamburg to Haifa via London. When it arrived in London, the ship received an official welcome in honour of Israel’s 9th anniversary. Before it left the port, the captain received a bomb threat. Not wanting to worry the passengers, he carried out a discreet search and discovered the threat to be unfounded. The ship sailed safely to Haifa. The Theodor Herzl was the first ship to sail into San Francisco harbour with an Israeli flag. The ship was sold in 1969 to an American company and operated until 1993.
Aliyah Bet – Aliyah Bet refers to the clandestine movement to bring immigrants from Europe to British Mandate Palestine from 1934 until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In the years leading up to, during, and after the Holocaust, Jews in Europe sought to escape the Nazis by immigrating to Israel. At the same time, the British Mandate authorities restricted Jewish immigration due to their concern that large-scale immigration to Israel would disturb the delicate status quo between the Jewish and Arab populations. The situation became even more dire when the British issued the White Paper in 1939, restricting immigration to 75,000 over five years.”. The British quota denied thousands of fleeing Jews the right to immigrate legally to Israel, thus denying them a much-needed safe haven. The so-called illegal immigrants were called ma’apilim, and they were brought to Israel by organisations such as the Jewish Agency, the Haganah and Betar who chartered ships and organised clandestine illegal voyages to Israel. The British intercepted many of the ships and detained the refugees in detention camps in Cyprus and Atlit. In total, more than 70,000 Jews arrived during the Aliyah Bet on 100 ships. Another 50,000 immigrants did not succeed and were detained by the British, to be released only with the establishment of the State of Israel.