Nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in Palestine over the week-end. Of them 547 came by rail from Turkey to where they were brought from Rumania on a Turkish vessel. Another 434 arrived here direct from Lisbon aboard the Portuguese steamer Guine.
The arrivals from Turkey related that their ship, the S. S. Salaheddin, was storm-tossed on the Black Sea for three days, and was blown off its course. At one point, they said, the vessel almost capsized. The Guine passengers, among whom are orphaned children, are still confined aboard the ship awaiting clearance by the immigration authorities.
Among the 547, who consist mainly of Jews from Rumania, Hungary and Poland, is Itzchak Mueller, 30, who told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had participated in the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in April of 1943. He left Poland only two months ago. When it was obvious that the Warsaw revolt was doomed to failure, Mueller said, he gave a German officer his last possession, a diamond ring, to carry him out of the ghetto precincts in a military truck.
Twenty-four of the arrivals were young Hungarian Jews who escaped from slave labor in copper mines in Bor, Yugoslavia, and joined Marshal Tito’s liberation forces. After participating in several battles against the Nazis, they left for Rumania when that country broke with the Germans. They were picked up in Bucharest by the Jewish Agency. When interviewed, they were wearing tattered rags which defy description.
Despite the hardships of their journey, almost all of the 547 were singing Hatikvah and waving blue-and-white flags as their train pulled into the railway station here. Their transportation was arranged by the Jewish Agency and financed by the Joint Distribution Committee.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
