Suggested Answers - Mini-Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

What happened to Hitler’s Concentration Camps after World War II ended?

Answer 1

The Americans/Brits/etc. kept them open for the 1.2 million Jews who had survived Hitler’s holocaust that killed 6 million Jews – “old hotels, new management” is the description applied by Rich Cohen in our extra-credit book “Israel Is Real” at p. 210. Most Jews remained in the concentration camps for 3-5 years (the last closed in 1951) since virtually none of the 1.2 million Jewish survivors were welcome to return to their original homes, most of which had been occupied by non-Jews for 5-10 years.

Question 2

The 1960 movie “Exodus” directed by Otto Preminger and starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb, etc., portrayed the story of Jewish escapees from the Concentration Camps trying to enter Palestine in 1947 aboard a ship named “Exodus” in the face of the 1939 British ban on Jewish immigrants. What happened in real life to the “Exodus” and its passengers?

Answer 2

The movie focuses on European Jews who were able to escape from the concentration camps run by the Americans/Brits/etc., but were caught by the Brits trying to sneak into Palestine in violation of the 1939 British ban on Jewish immigrants. All Jews caught by the Brits trying to sneak into Palestine were at first merely imprisoned on Cyprus.

“Exodus” was a cargo ship supplied by “Sam the Banana Man” (please see Q&A No. 4 below). On July 11, 1947, it sailed from Sète, France loaded with 4,515 European Jewish survivors of Hitler’s Concentration Camps. It was intercepted by the British Royal Navy (1) in violation of international law because it occurred on the high seas, and (2) with loss of life including some Americans among the crew. It was escorted to Cyprus where the 4,515 European Jewish survivors were imprisoned.

The movie shows the 4,515 Jewish survivors (which the movie says numbered only 611), making a daring escape from the British prison back to the Exodus, and engaging in a hunger strike that forces the Brits to permit the Exodus and its human cargo to sail to Haifa. The second half of the movie follows two fictional characters (Dov Landau and Karen Hansen) who were aboard the Exodus – as they become involved in the struggle of the Birth of Israel (indeed, “Exodus” has often been dubbed “Birth of a Nation”).

Unfortunately, Dov Landau and Karen Hansen were only fictional!!!

And the hunger strike occurred much later back in France!!!

The Exodus did go to Haifa, where the 4,515 European Jewish refugees were re-loaded onto three more sea-worthy vessels. The Brits then sent the 4,515 human cargo back to France as a signal to Zionists that the Brits would no longer permit European Jewish survivors caught sneaking into Palestine to merely be imprisoned on Cyprus – that they would be sent back to where they came from.

It was at Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles that on August 2, 1947, the 4,515 European Jewish survivors refused to disembark and engaged in their 24-hour hunger strike. In response, the French refused to force them to disembark. So the Brits sent them to Hamburg located in the British occupation zone of Germany, from which the Brits transported the 4,515 European Jews survivors to the Pöppendorf Concentration Camp at Lübeck, Germany.

Question 3

Who was the Mufti of Jerusalem?

Answer 3

Mohammad Amin al-Husseini (aka Haj Amin al-Husseini) was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the Brits in 1921. He was a half-brother (keep in mind Islam sanctions four wives) of the previous Grand Mufti.

The new Grand Mufti, above all other Arabs, set the tone for Arab attitudes toward Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. He made speeches supporting Nazi Germany and threatened Jews with extinction. He travelled to Berlin and met with Ribbentrop, Goebbels and, on November 28, 1941, Hitler. In the Grand Mufti’s own memoir, written after the war, he states that he asked Hitler for an explicit understanding that Arabs should be allowed “to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in handling its Jews.” Historians note that in a speech made by him during the war when there were thought to be 13 million Jews alive around the world, he spoke of “the eight million Jews now living” indicating that he was well aware that 5 million had already been killed by Hitler. Indeed, Adolf Eichmann, at his trial, said that the Grand Mufti had not merely known about The Final Solution, but had been one of the instigators.

Question 4

Who was Sam the Banana Man?

Answer 4

Samuel Zemurray was born Schmuel Zmurri in Russia to a poor Jewish family in 1877. They emigrated from Russia and immigrated into the U.S. when Sam was 14.

With no formal education, he entered the banana trade at age 18 in Mobile, Alabama where he specialized in buying bananas that had ripened in the transport ships and had to be sold within a matter of hours. By 1910, he owned extensive banana plantations in Honduras. By 1911, Honduran governmental policies imperilled his company. So he smuggled into Honduras former Honduran President Bonilla together with two mercenaries Sam had hired and staged a successful coup.

In 1930, Sam merged his company into United Fruit for a minority stock interest and retired. By 1933, United Fruit, primarily as the result of mismanagement, had seen its stock price plunge by 90%. Sam met with the United Fruit Board, primarily Boston Brahmins, and with his thick Yiddish accent presented his ideas on how to turn the company around. They laughed. So Sam mounted a proxy fight, recruited 12 other minority shareholders who, with Sam, owned 60% of the stock, voted out the old board and put himself in charge. Sam’s ideas turned the company around.

As noted in Q&A No. 2 above, Sam made the ship “Exodus” available in 1947 for transporting 4,515 European Jewish survivors to Palestine.

However, Sam played another important role in achieving Statehood for Israel. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 which partitioned Palestine into, what the resolution termed, a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State” based on the careful survey performed by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (which included none of the major powers) of who owned what.

What is not well known is that the vote in the U.N. General Assembly was 33-13 with 10 abstentions – and that a 2/3 majority had been required. (In June 1945, only 50 countries met in the San Francisco Opera House to hammer out the new U.N. Charter since most of the world still comprised European colonies, so it is not surprising that only 6 additional countries had joined the U.N. by 1947.)

Yes, the European countries had voted in favour as a bloc because they were so desperate to get rid of their Jews and finally close the Concentration Camps. And the Muslim countries voted as a bloc in opposition.

So who supplied the 2/3 vote??? Sam the Banana Man, of course!!! In September 1947 (two months before the U.N. vote), Sam curtailed his hours at United Fruit and spent most of his remaining time focusing on the governments of Latin America – Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela – all of whom voted at the U.N. in favour of Resolution 181!!!

Indeed, on May 11, 1948 (3 days before Israel declared its independence), Sam resigned from United Fruit citing “personal reasons.” And 13 months later, in June 1949 when the armistice was signed ending the Arab-Israeli War, Sam returned as head of United Fruit.
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