THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Ruth Kluger, a Mossad agent, worked tirelessly and selflessly to rescue Jews from the Nazi vice, in Eastern Europe.  Ruth spent two years planning and participating in rescue missions in Rumania during 1939 to 1941.  Ruth interacted with other Mossad field agents, the Haganah, Jewish agencies in Europe and Jewish individuals dedicated to saving Jews from the Nazis.   Arriving from Palestine, Ruth based her operation in her native Rumania, where she had grown up and still had family.  Ruth’s missions involved raising money to procure ships, as well as securing visas, for the condemned Jews.

 

The strategy of convincing Jews to give money for ships was not simple or easy.  Few Jews believed Hitler’s ranting.  Even after Kristallnacht, Jews still viewed Hitler, a Madman, whose radical policies would never be implemented.  Only with the tightening of Hitler’s policies and pogroms, and the destruction of Jewish communities did some Jews admit to the possibility of their imminent destruction.  Ruth did not succeed in convincing her own family.

 

The Jewish agency paid exorbitant sums to nations of Europe to free Jews and allow them exit.  The Agency also paid enormous sums of demanded bribes to nations such as Panama.  In 1939, a Panamanian Embassy official agreed to issue one thousand visas for one hundred pounds sterling each.  In desperation, the Agency paid and the Panamanians accepted each knowing the Jews were headed for Palestine, not Panama.

 

The government of Israel, referred to as the Yishuv or The Jewish Agency for Israel, recognized by Jewish Agencies worldwide as well as the League of Nations, not only fought the Nazi war machine, but fought the British policies of keeping Jews out of their homeland.

 

The British used the policy of the White Paper, an illegal decree issued on May 17, 1939, by the British government to control and limit Jewish immigration to Palestine, knowing fully, the Nazi intent to exterminate Jews.

 

Ruth met with many influential leaders in Europe including King Carol of Rumania, during her tenure in Rumania, and persuaded him to let a ship of Jews sail from the Rumanian port the British disallowed.  The Agency saved the few thousand Jews, who on outrageously priced, battered ships, left the horrors of Europe and sailed to British mandated Palestine, many then interned in British prisons, or sent back to sea to perish.

 

Ruth Kluger continued her work to help the Jews of Europe immigrate to Palestine/Israel through the end of WW II.  In 1945, after the war, Ruth based her operations in Paris and was the first official representative of the Jews of Palestine in Europe.  A year later, Ruth met with General Eisenhower in 1946. The General agreed to help acquire ships for the remnant Jews of Europe.

 

Appendix:  Historical archives

 

Comments:

Fascinating book replete with details, reads easily and quickly.

 

Note To Clarify:

In WW1 the British military offensive expanded from Egypt and defeated the Turks capturing the territory of the Levant, which is present day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.  After the war, with the Sykes-Picot agreement, the British gave Syria and Lebanon to the French.

Based on the Belfour declaration of November 1917, and the resolution of the League of Nations April 1920, the land of Eretz-Israel, (Palestine) was promised in its entirety to the Jewish Nation.

After WW I, and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the British assumed the Mandate over Palestine (the name resurrected by the British), that includes present day Israel and Jordan. The British later reneged and granted Jordan statehood in 1946.

Israel declared statehood in 1948.

 

Historically, the Hebrews termed the coastal land area of the Philistine cities of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath, Phleshet.  The Greeks coined the coastal land, Palestina, derived from Philistine.

After the Roman defeat of the Jews in the first century AD, to erase Jewish claim to the land of Judea, Rome named the area Palestina .  (The British reinstated the name Palestine in 1917, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.)