The biblical exodus had an unexpected reissue for the wandering Jewish people on July 11, 1947, when they believed they had left behind the penalties of the Holocaust. The operation organized by the Zionists to transport thousands of European Jews to Palestine (then a British colony) ran into difficulties in one of its largest charters, the ship Exodus 1947, with 4,500 passengers on board (officially there was room for 560).
Upon arrival in Haifa, the British administration refused to let her disembark so as not to set a precedent, and her occupants were returned to Europe on several freighters. They tried to leave them in France, but the passengers refused to leave the ships. Finally, they were taken to Hamburg, where they ended up – what a paradox – in an internment camp, this time British. The exodus became an odyssey.
The adventures of Exodus 1947 gave rise to a novel signed by an American novelist of Jewish origin, Leon Uris, eleven years later in 1958, which became a bestseller. And also to a famous film based on it directed by Otto Preminger, filmmaker of Jewish-Austrian origin, which would be released in 1960.
The issue generated a worldwide controversy and a current of sympathy towards the formation of the State of Israel, making it a symbol of the young nation.
