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'The Palestine problem'
World War II gave the 20th century distinction as one of the cruelest in history. A few hundred thousand European Jews managed to flee before escape routes were closed. But 6 million Jews didn't get out and died, along with Gypsies, political dissidents and people the Nazis deemed undesirable. Hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides died. Some 70,000 British civilians were killed by German bombs, 100,000 Chinese civilians died when the Japanese captured Nanking, and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans killed another 100,000. Before the horror was over, 45 million people had died. By the time the Nazi camps were liberated, only a remnant remained of Europe's Jews. Most prisoners were turned loose from the camps into chaos -- homeless, jobless, starving. Many of these 100,000 "walking dead" had no interest in rebuilding Europe. They were convinced that Palestine was the only place on Earth where they could find peace. Once more they were a flood, sailing to Palestine in every manner of leaky, overloaded immigrant boat. For two years after the war ended in 1945, the British again tried to dam the flow. They put the country under military law and blockaded the coast, turning back the ships and arresting any illegal immigrants who managed to sneak past them. Thousands of Jews were interned again, this time in dreary camps in Cyprus run by the British. The Haganah brought Jews through the blockade, landing their overloaded tubs on lonely beaches in the dead of night. Israelis tell of settlers running to the beaches and wading out toward the ships with shawls, yarmulkes and phony passports for the immigrants splashing ashore. The British, sick of "the Palestine problem" and faced with postwar rebuilding at home, asked for help from the United Nations and the White House.
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