ISRAEL: Holocaust survivor arrives in Israel 61 years after British troops foil her illegal immigration attempt aboard 'Exodus'

Record ID: 395678

  • Title: ISRAEL: Holocaust survivor arrives in Israel 61 years after British troops foil her illegal immigration attempt aboard 'Exodus'
  • Date: 26th July 2008
  • Summary: WIDE OF YOUTH DANCING IN CIRCLE
  • Embargoed: 10th August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA29BB89ON6O1MASQETZ0CJP2ZT
  • Story Text: 61 years after she first attempted to enter Palestine aboard the Exodus ship, Frances Greenberg, a World War Two survivor, has finally fulfilled her life long dream to come settle in Israel.
    In July of 1947, 27-year old Frances Greenberg boarded the renown Exodus and set to sail from Europe to Palestine -- with the dream of making Palestine her home.
    Jews were generally banned from immigrating to Palestine in the aftermath of World War Two, during which Palestine was under British mandate rule.
    Illegal immigration was the only resort for Greenberg and 4,500 other European Jews wanting to settle in the Holy Land.
    Many attempts were made to reach Palestine by sea but often they were turned away by British forces and sent back either to Europe or to holding camps in the near by Island of Cyprus.
    Born in Poland, Greenberg had spent most of the war in Russia only to return to an empty house in the wake of World War Two.

    "I was born in Poland in a city called Sierpc near Warsaw and I was brought up in a religious family, then I joined 'Ha Noar Ha Zioni' (Zionist youth movement) and before the war I spent most of my years in Russia, during the war," 88-year old Greenberg told Reuters Television upon disembarking her plane at Israel's Ben Gurion International airport on Tuesday (July 22).
    Greenberg left Poland after finding that her family had perished in the Nazi Holocaust. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

    "When I came back all my family had perished, during the war," Greenberg explained upon landing in Israel.

    "The agency told me 'wait don't go on any Aliyah Beit (the Hebrew term for the Jewish agency for illegal immigration to Palestine) boat, because we're forming a big ship that will go straight to Israel, and that was the Exodus. So in July '47 I boarded the Exodus," said a vivid Greenberg as her eyes teared from happiness.
    But as the Exodus came closer to Palestine's shores, British forces opened fire on the vessel, killing several passengers. The survivors were later sent to Germany.
    In Germany, Greenberg met her husband and immigrated to Pittsburgh in the United States.
    Sixty years after the founding of Israel, following the death of her husband, Greenberg decided to fulfil her life long dream and unite with her family in the Jewish state.
    Greenberg made 'Aliya' through Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization thats assists North American and British Jews in immigrating to Israel. Greenberg along with 210 other American immigrants were greeted by relatives in an official welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion airport.

    "Well I hope that this is a time that Israel is prospering and there should be peace in the future and all the Jews should be proud of Israel as they always are," Greenberg, overwhelmed by the commotion, said.
    Today, some 250,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel -- about half the number that arrived in the country since its establishment in 1948. Israel just recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.
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