Jews Will Die Rather Than Land in Germany

Northern Advocate, 28 August 1947, Page 7

Jews Will Die Rather Than Land in Germany

(Received 10 a.m.) LONDON, August 27. THE High Court has adjourned until August 29 the hearing of an application for a writ of habeas corpus directed to the Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin) and the Colonial Secretary (Mr Creech-Jones), calling on them to produce six persons (who are on the refugee ships going to Hamburg from Port de Bouc). . • The Jewish Agency applied for the writ m an effort to prevent the landing of the Jews at Hamburg.

A Jewish spokesman aboard the Ocean Vigour, one of the three refugee ships at Gibraltar, said the aim of all Jews aboard the vessels was “to drown rather than land in Germany.”

The women would be shipped to Palestine when fit to travel, their numbers being deducted from the immigration quota.

“It has been decided to die, rather than return to where Jews have been so ruthlessly butchered,” he said. The refugees obviously have no grudge against the troops guarding them, whom they cheered as they went ashore on leave today.

The party must disembark early tomorrow and the offer must be accepted or declined by tonight. Reuters correspondent abqard the Runnymede Park says 57 expectant mothers aboard the Jewish “exodus” ships refused the British offer. A French Foreign Office spokesman said France had agreed to receive Jewish refugees now en route to Hamburg, in reply to Britain’s Note, with the reservations that they voluntarily desire to land in France, their admission would not constitute a “precedent” for the admission of other displaced persons, and that by admitting these refugees the total refugees in France would not exceed the limit of 8000 fixed by the French Government in August, 1946.

Colonel Martin Gregson, commander of the British troops escorting the refugees, appealed to about 60 expectant mothers aboard the three ships to land at Gibraltar, with a view to their being sent to Palestine. Reuters correspondent aboard the Runnymede Park says that while the ships were lying in Gibraltar last night depth charges were dropped every 15 minutes around the ships as a precaution against “frogmen.” Powerful batteries of searchlights from the subterranean fortifications on Gibraltar lit the ships. A communique issued to the Press following the offer made to all pregnant women near confinement aboard the three transports stated that accommodation arrangements could be made for the 30 most urgent confinement cases to land at Gibraltar, including dependent children under 14 years of age.

Observers in Paris say the Government is maintaining the view that no refugees would be accepted if the British used force to disembark them. British authorities in Germany are moving 10,000 German Polish refugees from two camps along the Russian zone border in Schleswig Holstein, in preparation for reception of Jewish refugees on the way to Hamburg in three ships from Port de Bouc,