Presentation of the exhibition

On the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel (14 May 1948), the exhibition Alyah Beth organized by the Shoah Memorial from 6 May to 5 October 2008 evokes the clandestine departures of Jews from France towards Eretz Israel (Hebrew name of Palestine) between 1945 and 1948. Alyah is a Hebrew term for Jewish emigration to the Holy Land.

As Europe celebrates its victory over Nazism, nearly 40% of the world’s Jewish population has been exterminated. The few camp survivors are gradually returning to their countries of origin. Many Jewish survivors refuse to return to Central and Eastern Europe because of the virulent anti-Semitism that often rages there, as in Poland, but also because their original community has been annihilated.

In Germany and Austria mainly, they join the camps of "displaced persons" organized by the British and the Americans.

It is from these camps that the clandestine exodus of Jews to Palestine flows: from 1945 to 1948, 70,000 emigrants manage to enter despite the British blockade.

The exhibition highlights the particular role played by France from the Liberation, which provides concrete support to a vast network of illegal immigration towards Palestine and does not spare its international support for the birth of the State of Israel.

Public opinion and the benevolence of the French authorities hinder British policy regarding the entry of Jews into Palestine, the epic of the ship Exodus during the summer of 1947 remaining in this respect the most emblematic episode.

From 6 May to 5 October 2008
Place: level 1
Free entry
Every day except Saturday from 10am to 6pm,
on Thursday until 10 PM

L'Haganah Ship Exodus 1947 accoste dans le port de Ha�fa