Book reveals 1,000 survivors’ journey from Italian beach to freedom

Describing herself as a “road trip historian”, journalist Rosie Whitehouse embarks on a fascinating journey – both literally and emotionally – to discover more about a secret plan to transport more than 1,000 Holocaust survivors from an Italian beach to the British Mandate of Palestine, where a new life awaited. 

Having survived Auschwitz, hidden and fought in forests and endured death marches, the passengers still had to evade the British Navy, which had been tasked with limiting the number of Jewish refugees entering their territory.

Using her investigative skills, Whitehouse sets out to uncover the extraordinary stories of these passengers, some of which are told for the first time. Who are they, where had they come from and how had they survived?

The author travels across Europe, through Bavaria in southern Germany, across the Alps into Italy and on to Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland, in a quest to uncover this important, but seldom told piece of Holocaust history.

• The People On The Beach: Journeys to Freedom After The Holocaust by Rosie Whitehouse is published by Hurst, priced £20 (hardback).
• Available now.