Dozens of personal diaries of members of the 1970s generation have so far been submitted to the National Library as part of the "Operation Diary" project, which we have been following in recent months in a series of articles in Israel Hayom.
A particularly moving diary recently submitted describes the life of the illegal immigrants aboard the ship Exodus. Miriam Sternberg-Wechsler wrote the diary, and she touchingly details the agonizing struggle they endured.
"September 1, 9 - One person died on one of the ships today," she writes. "In the presence of all the ships that stood for a short time, he was taken down for burial in the Atlantic. The fourth victim, this time not from an English bullet, but from an ordinary death. Is it normal? About ten children were born on the ships over time. If we are on the water for another two weeks, the number of people born will increase."
Collecting the Diaries of Dor 5708: Behind "Operation Diary" at the National Library of Israel // Yoni Rikner
"Imagine living?"
Sternberg-Wechsler's diary was recently given to the National Library as part of Operation Diary by the Library and Israel Hayom, and contains chilling testimonies about the lives of the 4,500 illegal immigrants who left France in July 1947 to reach Eretz Israel.
The ship reached Israel, but the British refused to allow them to disembark and be absorbed. After a battle inside the ship, in which three were killed and dozens were wounded, the illegal immigrants were forcibly transferred to deportation ships that returned them to the shores of France. The incident received enormous media coverage all over the world, and condemnations and expressions of shock at the conduct of the British. Nonetheless, from the shores of France, the ships continued to the DP camps in Germany, and only a year later did the illegal immigrants immigrate to the State of Israel.
The diary of Miriam, who was only 19 when she boarded the ship alone after her family was murdered in the Holocaust, provides a glimpse into daily life and the inhumane conditions experienced by the illegal immigrants on the ship, which was intended for only 600 passengers but actually carried thousands of women, men and children.
In another excerpt from the diary, she describes the unbearable reality: "19.8.1947 - these bodies, lying in terrible disorder... The appearance of the hall at night is like after a pogrom. The legs cross, feet dirty with mud, because almost everyone walks barefoot all day. Women, men, old people, young people and children among them. One on top of the other, opposite each other, and you often wake up at night and find your neighbor's filthy feet on your stomach or chest... And no one even notices it. As if that's how it should be. Like it's a normal thing.
Page from the diary, photo: courtesy of the Wechsler family and the National Library of Israel
"Women lie half-naked and are not ashamed... It will happen that you will discover in your sleep the most intimate parts of your body, and they don't care... Do you really not care? Did we really imagine living? Has our situation reached the point of killing our most delicate and subtle emotions?"
The day before, she wrote: "Today a hunger strike on the three ships, in protest of our sitting in the port of De Bock. Tomorrow marks three weeks of our stay at this port. It is already clear to the whole world that we will not descend on the shores of France, and we demand that we leave the port and sail from here. The world is probably getting used to our business, and it is very possible that they will soon be forgotten. But we - we can't forget, because every day that passes is taken from us forever, and there is no end again."
Experiences of the 2018 generation
Sternberg-Wechsler was born in 1926, the ninth of ten children of Asher Zelig and Atla Tzipa Sternberg. The house was ultra-Orthodox, but Yardena, her older sister who was a member of Hashomer Hatzair, enrolled her in the Yavne school, where Hebrew was the language of instruction.
She was the only survivor of her entire family who remained in Poland, after Yardena and another sister left ahead of time. Her parents died of starvation in the ghetto, and all the others were sent to concentration camps.
In 1946, the Youth Aliyah sent her to teach Hebrew in the DP camp in Indersdorf, Bavaria, where children who survived the war were brought in. In July 1947, she immigrated with a group of children who taught on the Exodus. She arrived in Israel in April 1948, and a few months later joined Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael. She passed away in 2018.
Exodus ship - Exodus from Europe, photo: from Wikipedia
Sternberg-Wechsler's diary joins some 90 diaries from the State of Israel that arrived at the National Library as part of the project in honor of Israel's 75th anniversary, during which they were collected for deposit in the Library's collections for future generations.
Matan Barzily, Director of Archives and Special Collections at the National Library: "We would be happy to continue receiving personal diaries written in the years before and during the War of Independence from those in their possession, as well as diaries containing events and experiences from the first decade of the state. These can be diaries written in Hebrew or other languages, diaries of people who live in Israel or other countries - provided that they contain experiences shared by the 2018 generation.
"The National Library sees great importance in preserving and documenting history for the benefit of the future generation."
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