The Last Escape, The Launching of the Largest Secret Rescue Movement of All Time

First published in April 1974, this is a second impression of June 1974. Some edge wear to top and bottom of jacket and spine, corners slightly bruised, price clipped, no inscriptions, internally clean tight and square, overall a vg++ copy. 518pp. The astonishing story of Ruth Aliav (1910-80), Ukraine born Romanian and Israeli Jewish Zionist activist. She was one of ten original members of the Mossad, a Zionist group dedicated to helping Jews escape the Holocaust in Europe. Fluent in nine languages, she raised funds and helped organize the ships the 'Tiger Hill' in September 1939, and the 'Hilda' in January 1940, to carry Jewish refugees to Palestine. After Romania became an Axis Power, she escaped to Istanbul, and there together with other Mossad agents organized the dispatch of the ship the Darien II in March 1941. 'Darien II' was the last ship to bring Aliya Bet refugees to Haifa during World War II. A former lighthouse tender, she sailed from the Black Sea to Palestine in early 1941. In 1944, with Charles de Gaulle's help, she arrived in a liberated Paris and was the first Mossad agent to contact survivors of the Holocaust. In October 1945, Klüger acquired a troopship, the 'Ascanious', from an American, Colonel Ernest Witte, of Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff. It was planned that the vessel would convey orphans to Palestine and it was soon crammed with 2600 Holocaust survivors. On arrival in Haifa, the British government of Palestine had no choice but to let them in. The colonel wanted to repeat the passage, but it was vetoed by Eisenhower because of British pressure. In October 1945, David Ben-Gurion arrived in Paris and, to avoid eavesdroppers, he and Klüger Aliav went for a four hour walk in the Bois de Boulogne. Ben Gurion wanted to know if the Holocaust survivors would be ready to sail in the cramped Aliya Beth 'nutshell' ships. Klüger Aliav convinced him that after the Holocaust, the refugees would endure any hardship in order to reach the new homeland. A film of this book, 'The Darien Dilemma' was made in 2005. It is estimated that Ruth Aliav helped to rescue 50,000 Jews from Nazi occupied eastern Europe. Quite a scarce book.…