JEWS DEPORTED TO FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25242, 22 July 1947, Page 7

JEWS DEPORTED TO FRANCE

MOVE BY PALESTINE AUTHORITIES

MIGRANTS ON PRESIDENT WARFIELD (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 21. The three British ships which left Haifa harbour carrying Jewish illegal immigrants from the President Warfield are. according to an authoritative statement, taking the immigrants back to their port of embarkation in France. The Jerusalem correspondent of “The Times” says that the immigrants were transferred in the usual way to ships which normally take illegal immigrants to Cyprus. The destination was not announced, as there would have been determined resistance and a rather sharper state of alarm in Palestine than now rules. The decision to return the immigrants to France, presumably with French agreement, he adds, is evidently intended to show the uselessness of transporting human beings from European camps at great cost and discomfort and some risk.

The “Daily Telegraph’s” correspondent in Jerusalem says that the tension in Palestine is the highest since the King David Hotel was blown up. Jews held mass meetings throughout Palestine in protest against the deportation of the illegal immigrants. The three ships taking the immigrants to France, he adds, are the Empire Vigour, the Ocean Vigour, and the Runnymede. A Palestine magistrate yesterday remanded three American seamen who were charged with illegally trying to enter Palestine as members of the crew of the President Warfield. They were the ship’s captain, Bernard Marks, the ship’s cook, and a seaman. A Haifa lawyer put up bail of £lOOO.