Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (30 page)

Ike spun the wheel and turned the prow of the ship back to the open sea, to remove any doubt that the
Exodus
was sailing in international waters. Minister John Grauel turned on the siren and dejection spread among the thousands of passengers.

The siren shook Gertruda’s body. She sat up straight in bed and looked anxiously at Michael who was sound asleep. The passengers began streaming onto the deck and she hesitated to leave the child and hurry there with all the others. A woman with a baby in the next bed said: “I’ll watch him. You can go.”

“Thank you,” said Gertruda, and she rushed to the deck.

With a deafening wail of sirens, two destroyers approached the
Exodus
. By the light of tracers shot incessantly by the British, the pale faces of the soldiers could be seen as they prepared to assault. At the front stood the commandos in green uniforms, wearing white hats and gas masks, leather gloves and life vests. Submachine guns were hanging on their chests, guns and bayonets in their belts. Behind
them were soldiers in khaki, wearing helmets and also armed with submachine guns.

Hundreds of survivors streamed onto the deck, determined to repel the attacks. They threw canned goods, bottles, and pieces of metal at the soldiers. The English responded with ice-cold jets of water.

And then, unexpectedly, the destroyers began to retreat. For a few moments, it seemed that the resistance had worked and the expected attack had been restrained. Victory cheers resounded on the deck of the
Exodus
, but they were premature. Withdrawing the destroyers had been calculated in advance. They increased the distance between them and the
Exodus
only to gather speed and ram her harder. With groans of panic, the passengers of the
Exodus
watched the big metal monsters gallop toward them. In a wink, the steel prows of the destroyers shook the body of the
Exodus
and hundreds of people on deck fell from the force of the blows. The shattering of wood and metal filled the air. Through the few breaches, seawater began entering the belly of the ship.

Simultaneously, British soldiers tried to lay nets on the deck of the illegal immigrant ship to attack it. Four attempts were repelled by the passengers, who managed to put the nets in the water with dozens of soldiers on them. Among the waves, flashlights of distress of the British began to burgeon, fluttering in the water until they were picked up by the lifeboats.

One of the destroyers stretched a gangplank to the deck of the
Exodus
and a few commandos leaped on board. Two more destroyers tried to hook on to the ship. One failed. The other did succeed, but only two hours later. Over the scaffolds, British soldiers tossed smoke grenades and tear-gas bombs to the decks teeming with passengers. Submachine guns were shot into the air.

On orders from Aliyah Bet on the eve of the ship’s departure, no
weapons were brought on deck. The resistance of the immigrants was supposed to be unarmed, but no one could guarantee that the British wouldn’t open fire. And so, Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs had been prepared in secret places on the
Exodus
and hopes were riding on the effectiveness of the hose to spray boiling hot steam on the British soldiers.

When the soldiers began lobbing smoke grenades and tear-gas bombs, the passengers were furious and counterattacked, tossing the Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs at the British. They tried to spray boiling steam, but the hose didn’t work. Instead, they brought pots full of boiling oil to spray at the decks of the destroyers clinging to the ship, but the wind blew the oil back to the
Exodus
and her decks became slippery. Many people slipped and fell on the surface that turned black with the filthy oil. Gertruda stumbled a few times, but finally managed to get to her position. Two passengers stood there with iron poles. One of them handed her a pole.

Close to forty British soldiers were already on the deck of the
Exodus
. Ike accelerated and the ship sailed in a twisted path to get away from the destroyers and make it hard for the others to get on board.

A platoon of soldiers hurried to the engine room to stop the ship, but the iron grates and the locked doors kept them out. Four commandos made their way among the masses of immigrants to the wheel and bludgeoned anyone who tried to stand in their way. Some passengers were struck. One of the commandos screamed, “Move or I’ll shoot!” When three of them finally broke into the pilot’s cabin, they beat Ike’s first mate, Bill Bernstein, until he was bloody. Ike dragged him out to get first aid. The rest of the crew also slipped out of the cabin, locked the door, and imprisoned the three commandos. On the deck, beaten and injured, despairing of the
possibility of taking control of the ship, the British opened their safety catches and started shooting in every direction. Fifteen-year-old Zvi Yacobovitch was wounded in the head by a submachine gun salvo when he waved a blue-and-white flag. He lost consciousness and his blood stained the flag. Dozens of wounded collapsed after him on the deck.

The destroyers continued their ramming, and in the hold on the lower deck, children fell out of their beds when the destroyer banged the side of the ship. Water began spraying inside and panicky shrieks were heard on every side. The engine room was flooding with seawater and dozens of passengers were called there to empty the water using buckets.

The resistance of the immigrants was bolder than the British had expected. When the Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs ran out, they attacked nonstop with a hail of metal trash, pegs, screws, nails, bottles, canned goods, and potatoes. They chased the soldiers and tried to take their weapons. Gertruda took an active part in the resistance. She blocked the way to the lifeboats where a group of soldiers was hurrying to take control of the deck. One of them pushed her coarsely. Gertruda stumbled and hurt her ankle. She swallowed a groan of pain and looked helplessly at the blood flowing from the wound. Medics were taking care of those who were wounded more seriously than she, and she didn’t dare call for help. Suddenly somebody came toward her. She lifted her eyes. “Don’t worry,” said Minister Grauel. “I’ll take care of you.” Before she could respond, he tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt and bandaged her ankle. The battle raged all around, the soldiers were making their way with rifle blows, the healthy immigrants kept lobbing objects and scraps of food at them, and the wounded were wailing in pain.
“I’ve got to help the other wounded.” Grauel stood up. “Be careful. I’ll check in on you later on.”

Four British soldiers finally managed to get onto the lifeboats. One of them began shooting in every direction. One of the survivors hurried there and cut the ropes that held the boats to their cranes. The boats dropped onto a group of soldiers who had just landed on the deck. Six of them were wounded and yelled for help.

Meanwhile, furious passengers who surrounded the pilot’s cabin demanded a lynching of the soldiers imprisoned there. Minister Grauel hurried to the cabin with an American flag wound around his body. The group, which respected him, let him in. Grauel brought the three commandos out of the cabin, threw their weapons into the sea, and asked them to leave the ship.

In the hold where the women and children were huddled, there was panic. The thunder of the banging, the shattering of the shots, and the shrill shouts of the wounded stirred great fear there. Hysterical women yelled at the sight of the wounded and some even tried to hoist a white flag in surrender.

Michael ran to the deck to look for Gertruda. One of the passengers saw him and forced him back to the cabin. He curled up on his bed, frightened, and prayed for the battle to end and Gertruda to come back to him safe and sound.

A few hours after the battle began, before dawn, all the commanders of the operation gathered in the headquarters of the British navy. On information from the field, the British realized they had failed. Very few soldiers had managed to get to the illegal immigrant ship; some were captured by the raging mob, and some were captured and imprisoned in isolated cabins and had no contact with their commanders. The assault gangplanks placed by the British
destroyers were damaged during the action, and the possibility of landing more soldiers on the deck of the surrounded ship was very slim.

What the British weren’t aware of was that on the other side of the barricade, on the deck of the
Exodus
, many thought that the British, at least at that hour, had won a victory. The ship was in terrible shape. British soldiers who had taken over the pilot’s cabin, the map room, and the navigational equipment prevented any possibility of steering the ship. There was also a fear that the punctures in the flanks of the boat would sink it. Ike moved to the back pilot’s cabin and ordered an acceleration. The ship increased speed and Ike hurled it in a zigzag pattern to prevent the British destroyers from approaching.

Conditions on the
Exodus
deteriorated further. After the long and exhausting battle, hundreds of passengers were lying on the deck helpless, some of them wounded and bleeding. Only about thirty of them were still upright. The condition of the wounded grew worse and some of them needed urgent blood transfusions to save their lives. Dr. Joshua Cohen, a young doctor from Scotland who had volunteered to join the crew, took care of them indefatigably with a team of nurses recruited from among the immigrants. When he realized how serious their condition was, he hurried to the commander of the ship, Yossi Hamburger, who was with Ike in the back pilot’s cabin. In the distance, the lights of the settlements of the coastal plain were sparkling. The Promised Land was within reach.

Dr. Cohen wiped sweat from his brow and said in a gloomy voice: “One of those badly wounded is a boy named Zvi Yacobovitch. He’s an orphan who survived the Holocaust and was wounded while repelling the British soldiers. His older brother is standing next to his bed screaming hysterically. The wounded boy
is the only one he has left in the world. If Zvi isn’t taken care of immediately in a hospital, he’ll die here on the deck.”

Those in the cabin knew what that meant. Sending the wounded to the hospital could be done only by the British. If the commander of the
Exodus
was forced to request the evacuation of the wounded by the British, it would be a sign of surrender, the end of the resistance.

“How many mortally wounded do you have?” Yossi Hamburger asked the doctor.

“At least three.”

Hamburger glanced at Ike. The captain’s face was pale. He shrugged helplessly.

“Those people didn’t survive the Holocaust to die here,” said Hamburger gloomily. “I’ll contact the British.”

No one appealed his decision.

At dawn, the communications officer on the deck of the
Charity
handed the commander of the British destroyers a wire from the illegal immigrant ship. Commander Gregson was dejected; he knew it would be hard for him to explain to his superiors the meaning of the failed attack he had conducted. But as he scanned Yossi Hamburger’s wire, he knew that the tide had turned. For the first time since the attack had begun, the British commander breathed a sigh of relief. At long last, the
Exodus
surrendered.

Gregson sent a reply demanding that the illegal immigrant ship stop. With tears in his eyes, Ike shut down the motors. At five-fifteen
A.M.,
a British boat came alongside the ship, and a medical team climbed the rope ladder. The British were stunned at the sight that met their eyes: strewn over the deck were large quantities of canned goods and food that had rained down on the soldiers only a
few hours before. Some of the members of the medical team hurried to gather up as many canned goods as they could carry. There was strict rationing in Britain at that time, and they intended to send the food home.

Dr. Cohen led them to the wing set aside for the wounded. There were three mortally wounded there, and 270 more with varying degrees of serious injuries. The British doctor called for more physicians and two boats brought medical teams to the
Exodus
. Twenty British soldiers also boarded the ship to make sure the battle wouldn’t start again.

On orders from the commander of the fleet, the ship began making its way to Haifa. At nightfall, the ship sent a wire to UNSCOP, the international committee investigating the problem of the Land of Israel, whose members were in Palestine at that time:

At seven-thirty in the morning, after a sleepless night filled with sadness and weeping, the ship sent to the Hebrew
Yishuv
in the Land of Israel the following announcement:

Close to four in the afternoon, on July 19, 1947, the immigrant ship crept toward Haifa accompanied by eight British warships. At the railing, weeping bitterly in despair and disappointment, stood Gertruda, waving the flag stained with the blood of Zvi Yacobovitch.

Like a beached whale, the
Exodus
slowly approached the port. British war ships and patrol boats didn’t release it even after it passed the breakwater. By command of the British army, the passengers of the ship were to stay in the hold and not go up on deck before receiving a specific order. Dozens of commandos on the ship tried to make sure the order would be carried out. They blocked the hatches, threatened with weapons, but there were too few of them facing many who streamed onto the decks, waving blue-and-white flags, and singing “Ha-Tikvah” in loud voices. Many of the immigrants wept bitterly.