WE CANNOT DIE

The Palestine story is most often told in the language of politics or professional philanthropy. Last week when the largest group of European Jews ever to sail in a single refugee ship tried to pierce the British cordon around Palestine, a TIME correspondent told the story in human terms. He cabled this report of what happens when men crazed by fear find obstacles in their way:

In the thick Mediterranean darkness the refugee ship Lojita, renamed by its passengers the Jewish Assembly, heaved in the lashing seas. In its stinking coffinlike holds, along the rusted decks and companionways, deep in the engine rooms and even in the ancient, rotting lifeboats high in the davits, 3,854 refugees, 591 of them children, struggled for life. In a small armada of launches, caiques, fishing smacks and rowing boats, they had left tiny coves in France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece, to be picked up by the ship.

What Nationality? Three days from Palestine the captain and his crew left the ship by small boat, fearing imprisonment if they were caught by the British coastal forces. A group of refugees took over. Late that night, behind a tattered canvas awning, a baby was born, the ninth on the voyage. The German doctor, one of three on board, whispered to the mother: "Wir koennen nicht sterben" (we cannot die). Two more babies would arrive before the ship reached its destination. The doctors wondered what nationality they could claim.

Constantly in touch by radio, the underground of Tel Aviv dot-dashed the plan to the ship. The refugee radio operator, who could not speak English, painfully deciphered the messages in his Webster. The plan: a fleet of small boats would go out to meet the ship and would then put ashore refugees over a wide area of the coast in an "assault landing." Underground terrorists, who had ceased their attacks throughout Palestine for nearly a week, were ready to hold off police during the landing.

But British intelligence sources also got word of the Assembly's approach, and three British destroyers spoiled the Jewish plan. They spotted the Jewish Assembly, blinked an order for it to proceed to Cyprus. The Assembly's answer flashed back: "No, we have come from the concentration camps of Europe. This is not a pleasure cruise." A British destroyer captain pleaded: yield, avoid bloodshed. "Never, captain, never," was the reply. "As your own leader said we say: 'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the streets.' We shall fight on this ship for our right to live."

"Kill Me Now!" The refugee ship dodged and turned, but, after 48 hours, gave up. Then, surrounded by the three destroyers, two police boats and a tug, the captive Jewish Assembly, flying blue-and-white Zionist flags, entered Haifa harbor. As it gently nosed to the quay, there was a strange silence on its packed decks. Grenadier guardsmen, unarmed and unhelmeted, stood by with ambulances. Guardsmen, led by an officer, climbed the gangplank.

The silence broke when a refugee hit the officer full in the face with a five-

pound tin of corned beef. He collapsed on the gangway. As his soldiers tried to reach him, a shower of missiles rained from the screaming immigrants -- green oblong tins of Italian Army rations, U.S. Army K-rations, packets of biscuits, a heavy oxygen bottle. Above the barrage the refugees sang the Jewish hymn Hatiqvah. One stood up in a lifeboat, with his arms outstretched, and yelled in Hebrew: "Taharog oti akhshav!" (Kill me now!). An excited soldier fired eight rounds from a Sten gun, missed with seven, killed a boy of 17 with the eighth. Next the troops tried tear-gas grenades. Thirty refugees jumped over the side onto the narrow decks of a tug. Some of them missed and fell into the water. One broke his neck in the jump. With the tear-gas attack the troops got a foothold and, after a few minutes of hand-to-hand fighting, ended the riot. Then began the transfer to three deportation ships. Some walked, 'some had to be carried down the gangplank. Husbands searched for wives, and children for parents. The soldiers suddenly became gentle to old and young alike. One hysterical woman, her hair hanging loosely over her tear-stained face, looked for her children. A young British officer brought several stray children to her, but they were not hers. Eventually he found the right ones and her face cleared again. But deep hate showed in the eyes of the younger refugees as they refused assistance and walked, heads high, off the ship. On the transfer ships they looked at the barbed wire enclosing the decks, and a young one said in a voice heavy with bitterness "Das kommt uns bekannt vor" (this strikes us as familiar). "First In, First Out." The deportation ships left the dock and cruised along the coast, awaiting the judgment of the Palestine Supreme Court on a habeas corpus case entered on behalf of the refugees. Irish-born Chief Justice Sir William Fitzgerald upheld the right of Lieut. General Sir Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner, to order the deportations. When his decision was radioed to the ships offshore, they sailed for Cyprus, where the British concentrate illegal migrants. Sir Alan had won his case, but he was fearful of the cost. In an effort to forestall new outbreaks of violence and preserve recent improvement in British-Zionist relations, Sir Alan reversed Britain's tight ban on illegal immigration by announc- ing that 1,750 refugees would be allowed to enter Palestine from Cyprus im- mediately on a "first in [Cyprus], first out" basis. Sir Alan's concession did not satisfy Palestine extremists. A few nights later when the kilted First Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders were celebrating St. Andrew's Day with banquets in Jerusalem, mines went off at the intersection of the Street of the Prophets and St. Paul's Road. The Scots rushed out, fought a brisk rifle battle with "Stern gang" terrorists who had tried to seize the city. Later, as intermittent shots rang out over the city, a U.S. correspondent was stopped by a policeman, who leveled a submachine gun at him, said: "You should not walk the streets tonight. We are not particular whom we shoot. In fact we shoot first and ask questions afterward."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.