Mandatory Palestine Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====The Holocaust and immigration quotas==== [[File:Hagana Ship - Jewish State at Haifa Port (1947).jpg|thumb|''Jewish State'' ship, one of several Haganah ships that carried Jewish immigrants from Europe, mostly illegal, at the [[Port of Haifa|Haifa Port]], Mandatory Palestine, 1947<ref name="JIJI"/>]] In 1939, as a consequence of the [[White Paper of 1939]], the British reduced the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine. The [[Second World War]] and the [[Holocaust]] started shortly thereafter and once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing [[Nazi]] persecution were interned in detention camps or deported to places such as [[British Mauritius|Mauritius]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenk |first=RS |title=The Mauritius Affair, The Boat People of 1940–41 |location=London |publisher=R Lenk |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-9518805-2-4}}</ref> Starting in 1939, a clandestine immigration effort called ''[[Aliya Bet]]'' was spearheaded by an organisation called [[Mossad LeAliyah Bet]]. Tens of thousands of European Jews escaped the Nazis in boats and small ships headed for Palestine. The British [[Royal Navy]] intercepted many of the vessels; others were unseaworthy and were wrecked; a [[Haganah]] bomb sunk the {{SS|Patria|1913|6}}, killing 267 people; two other ships were sunk by [[Shchuka-class submarine|Soviet submarines]]: the motor [[schooner]] {{MV|Struma||2}} was [[Struma disaster|torpedoed and sunk]] in the [[Black Sea]] by a Soviet submarine in February 1942 with the loss of nearly 800 lives.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust/0140_Struma.html#P9 |last=Aroni |first=Samuel |title=Who Perished on the Struma And How Many? |year=2002–2007 |publisher=JewishGen.org}}</ref> The last refugee boats to try to reach Palestine during the war were the ''Bulbul'', {{MV|Mefküre||2}} and ''Morina'' in August 1944. A Soviet submarine sank the motor schooner ''Mefküre'' by torpedo and shellfire and machine-gunned survivors in the water,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://flot.sevastopol.info/ship/podlodki/shya215.htm |script-title=ru:Подводная лодка "Щ-215" |website=Черноморский Флот информационный ресурс |language=ru |date=2000–2013 |access-date=27 March 2013}}</ref> killing between 300 and 400 refugees.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wertheimer.info/family/GRAMPS/Haapalah/plc/2/7/bea98dbf1dc6d1a1772.html |title=מפקורה SS Mefküre Mafkura Mefkura |website=Haapalah Aliyah Bet Database|date=27 September 2011 |access-date=26 March 2013}}</ref> Illegal immigration resumed after the end of the Second World War, especially by the Haganah, who carried mostly illegal Jewish immigrants in the period 1945-47.<ref name="JIJI">{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467083|title=United States: British Collaboration on Illegal Immigration to Palestine, 1945-1947|journal=Miriam Joyce Haron|accessdate=6 December 2023|year=1980|publisher=JSTOR|jstor=4467083 }}</ref> After the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of the [[U.S. President]], [[Harry S. Truman]], and the recommendations of the [[Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry]] that 100,000 Jews be immediately granted entry to Palestine, the British maintained the ban on immigration. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page