The Definite Book on the Exodus
This is a great book that cuts through the hype of the fictionalized accounts shown in the famous book and movie about the Exodus. The real story, portrayed here, tells how the ship was bought by overseers NY, refurbished in Baltimore, resupplied in Norfolk (it had to turn back on the Atlantic in a winter storm), got fuel during a national coal strike in Paulsoboro, NJ - and eventually got its last repairs and sailed from Philadelphia to Europe.
Dr. Holly as done a magnificant piece of research here. He has found details from the General Warfield/Exodus 1947 early days as a Chesapeake Bay luxury steamer and its service for the US Navy in World War II France (as a port operations center after the Normandy landings). I could not believe that one man could do so much reseach and gain the confidence of so many people to tell him such secrets and details.
I used some of Dr. Holly's research in two articles I wrote about the Exodus. I was able to inform (via an Israeli journalist) a professor now seeking to compile a list of all the Exodus refugees that there he should be looking among the Sephardic community because Dr. Holly writes of a group of Moroccan Sephardic Jews boarding the Exodus in Sete, France. I would not have known that fact but not for Dr. Holly's definitive research and writings. To some of you reading this are now confused because your knowledge of the Exodus comes largely from the Hollywood movie. I assure you Dr. Holly's account is the true one: the ship and its' refugee passengers did not come from Cyprus as the movie depicts.
I can count on one hand great pieces modern of historical research that belong alongside this book in its dedicated effort to get to the truth.
