The boat to Israel, 1945*
He was sitting by my side holding onto the railings, feet dangling overboard. The boat was slowly gliding into port, toward a curtain of lights hanging from a tall sky.
Out there in the dark is our paradise, I thought.
In the games we played at the camp for displaced persons in Marseilles, everyone wanted to be an American soldier. Most everyone I met said they were waiting to go to America.
When I was told that I would not be sent to America, I was crushed.
To console me, I was told that Palestine is our “promised land,” the Land of the Jews, and that only the luckiest people got to go there.
“In Palestine, you will be free, money grows on trees, you will never have to worry about anything; it is our paradise.”
So when on that spring night I was sitting on the deck of the boat, crowded with refugees gazing at the lights of Haifa, I was shivering more out of excitement and anticipation of setting foot in “paradise” then from the chill in the breeze.
I fell asleep on deck, transfixed by the shifting lights of the city, reflected in the water below, and the steady sound of the waves lapping at the side of the boat.
The people of Haifa were at the dock to greet us … It was like walking into a dream.
Peter Paz, The Forgetting of Being (2)
The two boys belong to a group from the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons‘ camp who have been selected for the first authorized children’s transport to Palestine.“ (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – die Jungen sind nicht namentlich benannt)
[*Peter Paz dated this one year early / Peter Paz datierte die Ankunft in Haifa ein Jahr zu früh]