Hillel Speaker Recounts Post-WWII Exodus

Fifty people at the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel last night sat comfortably around large tables, ate hearty dinners and conversed pleasantly--all the while trying to imagine being squeezed into a small boat with thousands of other passengers.

The crowd had gathered to hear the story of Frank Lavine, a Massachusetts resident and survivor of the Exodus ship, which carried Jewish Holocaust survivors in their attempt to immigrate to Palestine after the end of World War II.

"After hearing his story, I knew I had to bring him here so everyone else could hear," said Benjie A. Flusberg '01 in his introduction. Flusberg met Lavine in Israel last summer while working as a Researcher writer for Let's Go.

After asking audience members whether they had read Leon Uris's Exodus or had seen the Otto Preminger movie of the same title, Lavine said he would tell the "real story."

The Exodus ship began as a luxury bayliner called the S.S. President Warfield, designed to carry 350 passengers a short distance--from Baltimore, Md. to Norfolk, Va.

After its use in the 1944 invasion of Normandy, the ship was deemed unfit for passengers, and it was left in a shipyard to be used as scrap metal.

But members of the Jewish underground found a need for the ship in the confused days after V-E Day, when many concentration camp survivors were living in displaced persons camps, waiting for admission to Palestine.

Before the war, the British--who controlled Palestine under a League of Nations agreement--had restricted immigration to Palestine to 10,000 a year in 1936 in an effort to stem the growing conflict between Arabs and Jews settling in the region. They continued to block refugees throughout the war, when Jews wanted most to return to their ancient homeland.

"Here they were in the camps, waiting for what?" Lavine asked. "Nobody knew."

His own story begins when the Jewish underground called for volunteers to help these "displaced persons" reach Palestine--whether the British liked it or not.

"I was amazed. The devotion that man had and the experience he lived through--he spoke of an experience with Jews across the world, which people don't usually highlight," Rebecca J. Slotnick '99 said.

First, the ship had to be repaired. Members of the Jewish underground recruited 40 men, mostly Americans, through Jewish men's clubs, synagogues and word-of-mouth to rebuild the S.S. President Warfield.

Lavine, one of the 40 original volunteers, described the ship and crew's long struggle to reach Palestine. After a storm nearly destroyed the ship on its first day at sea, it limped to Porto Venere, Italy, where the crew gutted the luxurious interior to fit it with bunks for 4,500 people.

"We put in beds, and when I say bed we're not talking about Sealy Posturepedic Mattresses," Lavine said.

But the British had warned Italy not to let the ship sail, and an Italian gunboat prevented its departure. A clever Italian woman, the liaison between the Jews and the Italian government, coerced an Italian admiral into diverting the gunboat.

The ship then sailed to Sete, a French city on the Mediterranean coast, to pick up its refugee cargo.

The British again subtly intervened--they bribed the operator of the tugboat responsible for pulling the ship out to sea. In a risky move, the Exodus crew distracted guards and cut the cable to the tugboat.

The struggle between the Jews and the British--who had been their liberators throughout Europe just a few months before--continued until a 1949 United Nations agreement granted a portion of Palestine for Jewish settlement.

"I like to think that...a combination of American Jews, Holocaust survivors and Palestinian Jews helped create the state of Israel," Lavine concluded.

After answering some questions, Lavine lead the audience in singing "Hatikvah," the Israeli national anthem, which the Exodus passengers sang to lift their spirits during the bleakest parts of their journey.

Lavine's visit was part of a series of events at Hillel this week celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. This is Israel's 51st birthday. Tonight at 5:30 p.m. Ambassador Dennis Ross, the special envoy to the Middle East, will speak in Hillel's Beren Hall.