Children who had spent years in concentration camps and be-ribboned veterans of British campaigns from Dunkirk to Arnhem were among the thousands of persons who marched through the streets of London today in a great demonstration against the actions of the British authorities in Palestine.
The marchers assembled early this afternoon after conclusion of a special meeting of the British Zionist Federation and a simultaneous demonstration in the Jewish-populated East End. Shouting slogans and carrying placards assailing British policy in Palestine, the demonstrators, estimated at 10,000, gathered in Trafalgar Square, where they were addressed by Jewish leaders.
In the concentration camp contingent were 200 youngsters between 14 and 18, all of whom bore on their arms numbers tattooed by Nazi guards. All were orphans, who had been seized with their parents in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany and taken to camps, where the parents were murdered. They carried placards reading: “We survived Oswiecim and Belsen. Our destination is Palestine.”
In another section were young people who are being trained on six farms in England to become agriculturists in Palestine. They carried a banner stating: “Stop Destroying Communal Settlements.” Placards held by the veterans had the words: “Haganah led Allies into Syria,” “Let the voice of real England be heard,” “Thirty thousand Palestine Jewish volunteers served with the Allies,” and “Use a constructive policy not Force.” As they marched they sang Hatikvah.
A leaflet distributed along the line of march, which was issued by the Zionist Federation, said, “we have gathered today to demonstrate our unity with the Jews of Palestine in their hour of trial, and to declare that we shall never be deterred in our determination to build the Jewish National Home.”
DELEGATION LEAVES COPY OF RESOLUTIONS WITH ATTLEE
While the Trafalgar Square meeting was in progress, a delegation led by Barnett Janner, Labor M P., and a vice-president of the Zionist Federation, went to the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, and left a copy of the resolutions adopted earlier at the Federation’s meeting.
The resolutions protested against the “aggressive action” taken by British forces on the orders of the government against the Jewish community of Palestine, its leaders and the elected representatives of the World Zionist movement and demanded:
1. The immediate release of the members of the executive of the Jewish Agency, the leaders of the other national institutions and the “innocent men and women arrested in Palestine.”
2. The cessation of attacks on Jewish settlements and public buildings.
3. The immediate opening of Palestine to the 100,000 Jews, whose urgent immigration was recommended by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
The conference declared that the establishment of the Jewish state in which Jews and Arabs would live as free men under a democratic order was the only possible solution of the problems of the Jewish people and Palestine.
Writing in Reynold’s News today, Richard Crossman, Labor M.P., and a member of the Anglo-American inquiry committee, appeals today for “magnanimity which alone can prevent ruin in Palestine.” He reveals that he “begged” Prime Minister Attlee to ask David Ben Gurion for cooperation and suppression of violence in Palestine, but Attlee refused.
Acknowledging the danger to the proposed British loan from the United States, the Sunday Chronicle insists that “Britain cannot bow her knee for money. We have a responsibility in Palestine which we have invited America to share. Our conscience is clear; we will keep our hands clean, whether dollars or no dollars” are forthcoming, the paper said.
The Sunday Observer appealed editorially to all Palestine Zionists to realize that members of the British Cabinet were not their enemies but rather Zionist sympathizers, and went on to warn that the anti-British campaign in the United States primarily endangered American Jews once Americans realized that their relations with a friendly power were being affected by Zionist activities. Many Sunday newspapers feature a photograph of Jewish demonstrators in New York carrying a Union Jack on which is superimposed a swastika.
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.
