The Last Exodus
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thousands of Arabs would pounce on the quarter in an orgy
of massacre and rapine which could be stopped only by Legion gunfire. With Dr. Azcarate and Weingarten leading the
way, the crowd of soldiers, newsmen, and photographers
walked down Zion Gate Way into the heart of the Jewish
quarter. What a thorough job of devastation His Majesty's
guns and ammunition had done to this area of the Holy City!
The scene was a no-man's land of rubble and stone—a St.
Lo, a Berlin, a Hiroshima in miniature—with charred bits of
clothing and household effects scattered among the wreckage.
A heavy bluish-gray haze hugged the buildings. It would not
vanish or be dispersed in the tiny, twisted, tight little ghetto
alleys. Was this an ectoplasm of the departed?
Legion soldiers were flinging doorways open or breaking
their way into locked homes. I followed them around. Most
of the homes were empty. In one stone hovel we found a
woman. She was either bedridden, unwilling, or afraid to
leave. She had on a green print housedress, and her hair fell
wildly over her shoulders. She sat on her bed, weeping with an
all-out, soul-quaking lament of which only Orientals are capable.
The Legion soldier ordered her to get out: "Imshil Imshil"
She cried all the more, and hugged the bed. Apparently she
wanted to die in this dark tomb. The soldier was about to use
his rifle on her buttocks, when he saw me, changed his mind,
and shouted again: "Imshi! Imshi!" The woman finally got
off her bed. I noticed that her legs were swollen. She picked
up a bundle, sat down once again, and was shoved out by the
soldier to join other stragglers. It was the only act of semiviolence I saw on the part of the Arab Legion. I also witnessed
many acts of courtesy and kindness to the old Jews. God indeed was with them in this last hour of their final expulsion
from a holy city turned unholy.
I followed the soldiers. I had no idea where we were going.
Every little while we would be forced to dash past a burning
building and just miss being showered with flaming wreckage.