Exodus Refugees Confused by New “freedom”; Liable to Arrest if They Leave Camps

Although the British authorities have withdrawn military guards from around the Poppendorf and Am Stau camps where the Exodus refugees are sheltered and torn down much of the barriers keeping the Jews inside the camp, the status of the refugees is quite confused.

The British announced that the Jews were free to come and go, but the Jews fear to leave the camp environs because they have no indentification papers and for that reason are liable to arrest outside the camps. A German broadcast stated that the Jews have DP status, but this has not been confirmed officially. Meanwhile, the refugees themselves have expressed distrust of the new British move.

(Arrangements have been completed for the transfer of the Exodus Jews from the Poppendorf and Am Stau camps to a regular DP camp in the northwestern part of the British zone of Germany, it was reported in London by Reuters, quoting authoritative sources. The report added that in the new camp the Jews would still receive the daily caloric ration of 1,550 to which they were reduced when they refused to go to France.)

At meetings in a large barracks in Poppendorf and the central square at Am Stau the Jews expressed their determination not to be separated until they obtained Palestine immigration certificates. They were addressed by Jewish Agency representatives in Germany and leaders of the liberated Jews in the British zone, who asserted that the Exodus refugees had won an immense victory for the Jewish people by their resistance.

Pointing to the recent deportation to Cyprus of some 4,200 visaless Jews intercepted in Palestinian waters, the speakers said that if the Exodus Jews had not battled to the end, the British would never have retreated from their decision to return all visaless immigrants to their ports of embarkation.

Meanwhile, it was learned that only seven of the refugees volunteered to return to France. The seven, it was learned, are now living in a DP camp for Balts, outside of Lubeck, under miserable physical conditions. They have not even been told whether they will be sent to France or elsewhere during the eight days that they have been in the new camp.