At
4:30 o'clock the afternoon of the sixth day all our passengers
were summoned to a meeting on the foredeck. They were addressed
from the bridge by a Haganah
worker. He gave them instructions about how they should
act if they were captured and questioned by the British.
There were cheers and applause when he said:
"As
far as we are concerned, you are already citizens of Eretz
Israel, whatever the English say."
He warned that there were still many difficulties ahead,
but one of his warnings created a reaction that seemed natural
to all of us.
"For
a while you may find that you have not gone to Eretz, but
to a prison in Eretz." There was a burst of relieved laughter.
Prison didn't matter so long as it was a prison in Eretz.
"There
you'll see barbed wire again," he continued.
There were chuckles of satisfaction from the crowd. Barbed
wire didn't matter either.
The meeting and the instructions caused a stir. Everybody
felt that the end of our journey must be near.
We were told to line up on deck and proceed one by one to
the captain's cabin, where we would be given our illegal
immigration certificates.
We each filled out a blue certificate printed in Hebrew
on one side and in English on the other. It was called,
"Permit to Enter Palestine." We wrote in our name, the names
of our parents, the place and date of our birth, and our
nationality by birth. The certificate stated that we "had
been found qualified by the representatives of the Jewish
Community of Palestine for repatriation to Eretz Israel."
The
certificate cited four authorities for the Jewish community's
action.
The
first was from Ezekiel: "And
they shall abide in the lands that I have given unto Jacob
my servant, wherein your fathers abode, and they shall abide
therein, even they, and their children, and their children's
children, forever."
The second was from Isaiah: "With
great mercies will I gather thee."
The third was Lord
Balfour's Declaration of 2 November 1917, and the last
was The
Mandate for Palestine.
