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Ida Nasatir book review

Underground to Palestine by I.F. Stone

May 29, 1947—Book review—Underground to Palestine by I.F. Stone—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 6: Have you ever wanted anything so fiercely, so completely that your very life depended upon it? have you ever felt, that no matter what, even though a million obstacles beset your path, that you must and would overcome them? I don't suppose that we who live in this country can every understand or really define the suffering and hardship that our fellow Jews undergo in their underground journey to reach their last hope of  refuge—Palestine.  Mr. Stone, in his popular book, Underground to Palestine, tells of this journey. A newspaper correspondent, he reports it as he saw it. There were times when he wondered if he would ever get back to tell it. Basically, it is the story of how the Haganah is saving the Jews of Europe. It is full of harrowing memories of brutal mistreatment, of being unwanted, despised in the countries of their birth. In the words of a Jewish ex-Partisan: "The Germans killed us. The British don't let us live."  The author travels with these escaping Jews: he undergoes the same privations and disruptions that they do. Clearly and realistically he says: "The big news about the Jews of Eastern Europe is not that they have suffered. The real news is that so many of these people came across the border with tremendous vitality, with spirits unbroken. Everywhere else in Europe, I felt a defeatist spirit. In France, Vienna, Austria, Italy. These Jews out of the East who have suffered more than any other people in the war in terms of sheer numbers slain, who returned to find themselves without home or family, have a will to live and a will to build, that are wonderful to see." In writing of this mass migration, Mr. Stone tells of the many who are caught on their way over. Occasionally they find a guard who will let them pass. More often they are stripped of all valuables and good clothes before they are allowed to proceed. Some remain on the border in unmarked graves. The crossing is difficult enough for the men; it is agony for the women and children. But they go on. The push is out of Europe. The pull is toward Palestine.  To read this book is to share the adventure and the heartbreak on a trip of an illegal boat to Palestine. It does odd things to the reader. It gives him a sense of great humility at the tremendous, unconquerable vitality of his people across the seas. It does something else. It imbues him with a sense of deep and justifiable pride.