Berihah

Berihah is an organization which dealt with the emigration, of the Jews of Europe survivors of the Shoah, towards the Palestine agent.

The emigration of the Jewish refugees towards Palestine was illegal, because the Jews neither were authorized to leave the countries of Eastern Europe and nor were not authorized to settle in Palestine.

At the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, the Jews members of Polish resistance met in Lublin the combatants of the Ghetto of Warsaw. They créerent Berihah to help the Jews to leave Europe where they were persuaded that a new holocaust would take place. Initially directed by Abba Kovner, the movement was then directed by the Jewish Brigade. Abba Kovner organized then clandestine actions of revenge.

The movement becomes the first channel of emigration. After the Pogrom of Kielce in 1946, the movement was accentuated with 100000 Jews which left Eastern Europe in 3 months. Operating in Poland, in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia during 1948, Berihah transferred approximately 250000 survivors in Austria, Germany and Italy through networks of smuggling. Using the boats provided by Mossad Le' aliyah Study Bureau (Haganah connects), these refugees entered by smuggling to Palestine. These illegal immigrations finished with the creation of Israel where immigration became legal.

Notes and references of the article

Berihah on the site of Yad Vashem
Illegal immigration on the site of the center Wiesenthal
Immigration towards Palestine agent

See too

Exodus 1947

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