Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
The Revolt is Proclaimed.
Ultra Requete:
--- Quote ---When the decision was taken to attack the railway station in Jerusalem, Heinrich Reinhold (Yanai) was appointed commander of the operation. On October 29, a day before the assault, Yitzhak Avinoam, Jerusalem district commander, and Amichai Paglin (Gidi), chief operations officer, came to Yanai's apartment in the Rehavia quarter of Jerusalem. There was a curfew in Jerusalem that evening, but Rehavia was one of several quarters outside the curfew area. They wanted to find out why Yanai had not arrived at that evening's scheduled meeting. They went up to the second floor apartment, where the door was opened by the landlady. Avinoam told her that they had come to visit Yanai, and they were surprised to hear that he was not at home. Their first thought was that he had been kidnapped by the Haganah, or possibly arrested by the British. In either event, he was liable to be interrogated and Avinoam decided to take precautionary measures in case Yanai broke down under interrogation and revealed the plan for the raid on the railway station. It was also essential to replace him as commander of the operation.
Yitzhak Avinoam
The following day, October 30, Avinoam and Gidi went to the room in the Sukat Shalom quarter from which the fighters set out on missions. At 7 am, they arrived one by one. Among them was Eliyahu Levi (Aviel), one of the senior commanders in Jerusalem, who had been privy to the preparations and knew all the details of the plan. Aviel had been appointed as Yanai's replacement, but it was decided to postpone the operation and to check on the situation in the target area.
At 10 am, Salomon, the signals officer, was sent to the station area on a tour of reconnaissance. He set out on his motorbike and returned soon after to announce that he had seen nothing suspicious. An hour later he was sent on an additional tour and, on his return, informed Avinoam again that nothing appeared suspicious.
He was sent out later for the third time. On his return, he encountered Aviel, who was seated with his unit, in two taxis, awaiting the signal to depart. "What's going on?" asked Aviel.
"Everything's OK" replied Salomon.
Salomon had not yet had time to report to Avinoam on his reconnaissance tour. Aviel gave the signal and the force set out in two taxis (which had been requisitioned that morning in Jerusalem). Seated in the first taxi were Yosef Levi (Kushi) and Mas'ud Biton, disguised as Arab porters.
Meir Feinstein
In the second vehicle Sima Fleishhaker-Hoizman, dressed elegantly, sat beside Eliyahu Levi (Aviel), also in formal dress. They were posing as a young couple setting out on their honeymoon. With them were three guards, and at the wheel was Meir Feinstein. In the trunk of the car were three suitcases filled with explosives and detonators.
When the second taxi reached the railway station, the two "porters" came over to assist their "clients". Sima and Aviel emerged from the taxi, whilst all the Arab porters at the station offered their services. Aviel chose Kushi and Biton (to the annoyance of the real porters), who unloaded the suitcases from the taxi and put them down in the waiting room beside the ticket office. Aviel set the fuse connected to the devices, and Sima went over to the ticket office to buy tickets. No-one seemed suspicious at this point. After purchasing the tickets, Sima took a large cloth sign out of her handbag and placed it on top of the cases. On it, in three languages (Hebrew, English and Arabic), was written:
"Danger, mines"
and the Irgun symbol. An Arab policeman who was standing nearby went over to Sima, gripped her by the dress and asked: "What's this?" Sima hit him in the face and freed herself. One of the Irgun security men saw what had happened, aimed his sub-machinegun at the policeman and shot him. The fighters ran towards the two taxis waiting at the entrance to the station and jumped in. Suddenly the cars came under fire from all sides. Feinstein, who was in the driver's seat, was severely wounded in the left arm, but managed to drive with one hand. Sima, seated beside him, tore his shirt and bandaged his wounded arm. The heavy fire continued, and in addition to Feinstein, Azulai was hit in the stomach and leg, and Horovitz in the neck. Feinstein continued to drive rapidly and succeeded in shaking off the British armored car. The car halted at the entrance to the Yemin Moshe quarter of Jerusalem, where several Irgun girls were waiting to collect the weapons. Sima accompanied Feinstein to Yemin Moshe, where they found refuge in an apartment belonging to an old couple. Sima laid the wounded man on a bed, untied the temporary bandage and placed a tourniquet on the wounded arm. While she was treating Feinstein, a 14-year-old boy entered the room and told her that the police had arrived in the quarter, and were tracking the blood stains. Sima asked him to camouflage the stains with soil, while she herself went out to see what was happening. She discovered that the police had reached the house where Feinstein was hiding, and feared that they would arrest her as well. She bent over as if to tie her shoelace, thus hiding her dress, which had been torn in the struggle with the Arab policeman. Then she slipped away and fled Yemin Moshe.
Azulai, wounded in the stomach and leg, was also taken to a house in Yemin Moshe, where his wounds were bandaged. Shortly afterwards, the entire area was surrounded by police reinforcements and placed under curfew. All the men were asked to come outside and report for an identity parade. The two wounded men were apprehended and taken, under guard, to the government hospital.
Horovitz and Biton were arrested by Arab Legion soldiers, as they walked towards Jerusalem's commercial center and were handed over to the British police.
At 2 pm. large numbers of policemen reached the railway station. When the police sapper tried to lift one of the suitcases, there was an explosion which destroyed the interior of the building and killed him.
Jerusalem Railway Station after the explosion
Avinoam was waiting in one of the Irgun's safe houses when he received word of the ambush which the British had prepared for the fighters, and learned of the casualties and arrests. While he was absorbing this information, he was informed that the police had seized an arms cache at Givat Shaul. Avinoam recalled that the location of the arms cache at Givat Shaul had been known to Yanai. He approached Adina Hai (the district liaison officer) and asked her to go immediately to Tel Aviv with a note for headquarters. It consisted of only two words:
"Yanai sarakh"
(Yanai has betrayed us)
Information flooded in, all of it connected to Yanai. The police had raided several rooms in Jerusalem, all known to Yanai. The vehicle used by the district command, which had been kept in a parking lot near the Strauss clinic (a fact known to Yanai), was seized by the British. In Tel Aviv and Haifa, the police arrested several commanders, who were hiding in safe houses, whose location was also known to Yanai.
Yanai's treachery stunned and angered the Irgun. It was the first (and only) time that a senior commander had abandoned his men before they set out on a combat mission, and the question as to why he acted as he did remained unanswered for many years.
A British Intelligence document released for publication thirty years after the operation (Haganah archives 31/74) revealed that Yanai was arrested by the British Intelligence, broke down during interrogation, and in order to save his life, decided to collaborate with the British. He told them everything he knew about the Irgun, including the planned assault on the Jerusalem railway station, and was immediately flown to Belgium by the British.
--- End quote ---
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac11.htm
Ultra Requete:
--- Quote --- On January 31, 1947, Kol Yerushalayim (The Voice of Jerusalem) broadcast a Mandatory government announcement to the effect that, as a consequence of the recent disturbances in Palestine, it had been decided that British women and children and other British nationals whose presence in Palestine was not essential, would be evacuated. Soon after, some 1,500 men, women and children were evacuated by train to Egypt and transported from there by sea to England.
In addition to evacuating women and children, the British army began constructing 'security zones' in the three large cities. In Jerusalem itself, four such zones were set up and the atmosphere in the city changed drastically. The central 'security zone' was set up near the Russian Compound. Local nationals, most of them Jews, were ordered to abandon their shops and offices, without being offered alternative places by the authorities. The entire area, which included the Generali building, the Anglo-Palestine Bank building and the central post office, was cordoned off by barbed wire fences and entrance was by identity card only. The police often conducted body searches of citizens who wanted to enter the fenced area. The area opposite the Yeshurun synagogue was also cordoned off, and became a 'security zone', which included the officers club in Goldschmidt House and the adjacent military depot. Additional security zones were located in the Talbieh quarter, in parts of Rehavia and the Schneller camp.
The Security Zone in Jerusalem ("Bevingrad")
The security zones (or 'Bevingrads', as the local population called them) soon became 'internment camps' for British soldiers and policemen, who were permitted to leave only when on duty. Places of entertainment (which were all outside the security zones) were now 'out of bounds' to the British, and contact with the civilian population gradually dwindled.
A poster published by the Irgun
The atmosphere in the Yishuv was increasingly anti-British. This was largely due to the attitude of the British authorities towards the Jewish population, and their brutal treatment of the immigrants brought from Europe by the Haganah. In that period, the Haganah stepped up its activities, and the number of illegal immigrant vessels was increased. However, in most cases the ships did not succeed in breaking the British naval blockade on Eretz Israel, and the immigrants were intercepted, and taken aboard British vessels, which conveyed them to internment camps in Cyprus. Those immigrants who resisted were taken by force and many of them were injured in the struggles. This brutal treatment of defenceless people, who had come from the European graveyard to seek refuge in Eretz Israel, aroused a storm of protest in Palestine and throughout the world.
The Irgun was not slow to react, and the underground struck even more heavily at the British. Military targets were attacked throughout the country, and in Jerusalem plans were completed for an assault on the Officers' Club at Goldschmidt House on King George Street.
On Saturday, March 1, 1947, some 15 members of the Jerusalem Fighting Force assembled at the Alliance girls' school. The school janitor, who was collaborating with the underground, left the gate open and made all necessary arrangements so that the Irgun fighters could hold their meeting uninterrupted. The attack had been scheduled for Saturday, at a time when the streets would be empty, in order to avoid civilian casualties. After the briefing, the fighters were given weapons and the combat unit received British army uniforms as a disguise.
After the preparations were completed, the convoy set out, headed by a taxi with three fighters. It was followed by a van carrying the five-man combat unit, headed by Dov Salomon (Yishai). It had been agreed in advance that if the road was open, the taxi would halt briefly, and this would be the signal to start the operation. If, however, the taxi drove on without halting, this would mean that the road to the Officers' Club was not clear. When the taxi reached the location, several army trucks were parked outside the club, and it drove on without stopping, followed by the van. The combat unit was forced to circle the area three times. Finally Yitzhak Avinoam (the District Commander, who was waiting nearby) gave the order to attack. One unit took up position beside the Yeshurun synagogue, opposite the Officers' Club, and aimed a Bren gun at the neighboring building to prevent the British soldiers stationed there from disrupting the operation. An additional unit took up position on King George Street with the task of maintaining a fusillade which would prevent passage of vehicles.
The van drove rapidly, broke through the barbed wire which surrounded Goldschmidt House and halted in the courtyard close to the entrance. The guards went over to the car and asked for an entry permit. In response, the fighters opened fire and all the units went into action.
The three sappers entered the building under cover of the gunfire, carrying with them three rucksacks containing 30 kilograms of explosives each. Salomon placed the rucksacks beside the building's supporting pillars, and after igniting the fuse, gave the order to retreat. The sappers ran towards the door, but one of them suddenly remembered he had left his revolver on the rucksack and started back to fetch it. His comrade pulled him by the sleeve, and together they managed to exit the building in time. They continued to run towards the Ratisbonne monastery (which lies behind the Yeshurun synagogue), and slipped through an opening in the fence which had been prepared in advance. In the Ratisbonne courtyard the weapons were thrown into a sack brought by the Irgun girls, and the fighters took off the British uniforms. They made for the Nahlaot quarters where they dispersed. At 3:30 PM, there was a loud blown up, and the Goldschmidt House collapsed.
The British Officers' Club in Jerusalem
Seventeen British officers were killed in the explosion - among them several senior intelligence officers - and 27 injured.
The reaction in Britain was reported by the Haaretz correspondent in London:
SHOCK IN LONDON
The attack in Jerusalem came as a shock to London at the weekend. The evening papers produced special editions with banner headlines as each new item of information was received. The attack reminds everyone of the King David affair. The press stresses that this is the first time the terrorists have perpetrated an attack on a Saturday, and emphasize that it took place inside the security zone.
The 'Sunday Express' printed a banner headline:
"Govern or Get out".
The blowing up of the Officers Club in Jerusalem was the culmination of a series of attacks on British targets all over the country. A number of military vehicles were mined on interurban roads; army depots at Hadera, Pardes Hanna and Beit Lyd came under mortar and machine-gun fire; and in Haifa, an army vehicle lot was attacked and 15 vehicles were destroyed. In the course of these operations, dozens of British soldiers were killed and injured.
OPERATIONS 'ELEPHANT' AND 'HIPPO'
The reaction to the March 1 operations was swift. The same evening, Kol Yerushalayim (The voice of Jerusalem) broadcast an official announcement, stating that the High Commissioner had decided to impose martial law on the Jewish quarters of northern Jerusalem and on the districts of Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Bnei Barak and Petah Tikva. In Jerusalem, the operation was code-named 'Hippo' and in Tel Aviv 'Elephant'. The operation had been planned meticulously several months before, and the High Commissioner had been empowered to put it into effect at his discretion. More than 20,000 British troops took part.
The introduction of martial law came as no surprise; the High Commissioner had told the leaders of the Yishuv several times that if they did not resume full collaboration with the authorities in the fight against the underground organizations (as they had done during the Season), he would introduce draconian restrictions, and even proclaim martial law in Jewish areas. Although the heads of the Jewish Agency feared the destruction of the Zionist endeavor in Eretz Israel, they did not accede to the High Commissioner's demand. Betrayal of Irgun fighters to the British was now carried out on a more limited basis, subject to the decision of the highest echelons of the Jewish Agency.
Under martial law, all the powers of civilian government were transferred to the military. Civilian courts were replaced by military tribunals, empowered to hold rapid trials; post offices were closed and public and private transport immobilized. Use of telephones was restricted, and special permission was required for opening banks. Soldiers were granted policing powers, and were authorized to arrest suspicious individuals, and to shoot curfew breakers. Indeed, immediately after martial law was proclaimed, two Jews were shot and killed, one of them a four-year-old girl standing on the balcony of her home in the Mea Shearim quarter. The entire zone was closed to traffic and special permits were required for entry or exit.
The British set themselves two objectives in proclaiming martial law: firstly, to bring underground activity to a halt, since they believed that it was focused in the closed areas, and secondly, to undermine the economy of the Yishuv and thereby force the leaders of the Jewish Agency to resume their cooperation with the British against the Irgun and Lehi.
It was soon manifest that the population was adjusting rapidly to the new situation. Improvisation skills were brought into full play; in the absence of buses, horse-drawn carts carried passengers to their destinations. Many people rode bicycles, while others simply walked. As time passed, the British were forced to permit the supply of foodstuffs to the areas under siege, and the number of transit permits was extended. From time to time, the curfew was lifted in the areas under martial law, and the population was permitted to purchase food. At these times, crowds assembled on both sides of the barbed wire, and soldiers helped to pass parcels from one side to the other. Yosef Avni, who was in charge of the Irgun's arsenals in Jerusalem, relates that in order to prepare the attack on the Schneller camp, it was necessary to bring weapons out of the closed area. He instructed the storeman to load grenades and revolvers into a sack. One of the soldiers on guard then helped lift the sack over the barbed wire fence and handed it to Avni, who was waiting on the other side.
The Irgun General Headquarters decided to step up onslaughts against the centers of British government. All district commanders were ordered to take action within their areas of jurisdiction without awaiting special permission from the General Headquarters. In the first week of martial law, various targets were attacked outside the closed areas; mines were laid daily on interurban roads to damage military vehicles; army depots came under mortar and rifle fire. In the second week, the Irgun and Lehi began to raid military targets inside the closed areas. The Lehi attacked Hadar House in Tel Aviv (one of the headquarters of the British forces), and the mobile police camp at Sarona. The strikes against military transport continued and the British-Iraqi petroleum pipeline was blown up.
THE ATTACK ON SCHNELLER CAMP
The Irgun's military activity during the period of martial law culminated in the attack on Schneller camp in Jerusalem.
The Schneller Syrian Orphanage was founded in 1860 by Father Johannes Ludwig Schneller, who came to Jerusalem from Germany as a Protestant missionary. At first, the institution took in children orphaned by the Druze massacre of Christians in Lebanon and Syria. In time, the compound grew and was walled in, and after the Second World War it became a closed army camp.
Schneller camp was located in the area under martial law. The camp was, in fact, at the heart of one of the security zones, and its surrounding wall had firing positions at its corners. All access roads to the camp were surrounded by barbed wire fences, and a large number of troops guarded the entire area.
On the evening of Wednesday, March 12, members of the Fighting Force assembled at an apartment in Haturim Street, which had been placed at the disposal of the underground. Yehoshua Goldschmid (Gal), who was commanding the operation, briefed them, and the fighters split up into four squads. Two-man squads were ordered to set up road-blocks; they placed barrels in the middle of the road, with a notice on each in Hebrew and English:
'Beware, mines!'
Because of the shortage of explosives, not all the barrels were full. It was assumed that the warning notices alone would deter the British troops from taking unnecessary risks. In fact, the gamble succeeded and they did not dare risk shifting the barrels. Having completed their task, the two squads rapidly left the scene.
A third squad, under Gal, was assigned to security. The squad took up positions in a building which overlooked the entrance to Schneller camp, with the task of preventing soldiers from coming out of the camp by firing automatic weapons at the gate.
The fourth squad, under Yosef Avni, consisted of five fighters, each carrying a rucksack containing 30 kilograms of explosives. Under cover of darkness, they reached the stone wall surrounding Schneller camp and hid behind a nearby fence. They then broke through the camp wall, and crawled through the opening into the camp. After breaking into the first building under cover of tommy-gun fire, Avni lit the fuses of the mines and retreated. While he was crawling back, there was a loud explosion. The blast hurled him against the wall, stunning him momentarily. As soon as he reached the rest of the unit, the group withdrew to the area outside martial law, hid their weapons and dispersed to their homes.
The Attack on Schneller Camp
One British soldier was killed in the attack and eight were wounded, three seriously.
The incident was reported in Ha'aretz :
GREAT CONFUSION
After the explosions, warning sirens went off in Jerusalem and there was a volley of gunfire. Almost all the soldiers in the military zone fired repeatedly. There was considerable confusion and the shooting was random. While this was going on, the attackers slipped away. The firing continued for more than half an hour. There was no loss of life in the civilian population inside the military zone.
The explosion in Schneller camp made a strong impression on the local and world press, and severely undermined the prestige of the British administration. It offered resounding proof that the British were unable to check the Jewish underground, which was operating in small units and effectively exploiting the element of surprise.
On the night of the Irgun raid on Schneller, several additional targets came under attack throughout the country: an army camp near Karkur was raided, shots were fired at the Sarona camp and a landmine exploded near Rishon Lezion.
A poster published by the Irgun
Martial law, which lasted 16 days, was revoked on March 17 (four days after the attack on Schneller). In all, 78 persons 'suspected of membership of terror organizations' were arrested throughout the country - a tiny number in view of the scope of the operation. Martial law was a total failure; the British did not succeed in suppressing the underground organizations. The Government Information Service announced that during the period of martial law, 68 'terrorist acts' had been committed, 4 per day on average.
The leaders of the Jewish Agency did not revert to widescale informing on Irgun and Lehi fighters. The threat which had hovered over the Yishuv for so long had now receded. The most drastic weapon the British could wield had proven ineffective, since the Yishuv had easily adapted itself to the new situation. The underground movements emerged from the crisis stronger than before and with enhanced prestige.
The attack on the British Officers' Club and the debacle of martial law motivated the opposition in Great Britain, under Winston Churchill, to re-double its denunciations of government policy. In one of his speeches, Churchill declared:
How long does the Secretary of State for Colonies expect that this state of squalid warfare will go on, at a cost of 30 or 40 million pounds a year, keeping 100,000 Englishmen away with the military force?
The Sunday Express wrote that:
the Palestine problem has to be solved and solved at once. British lives are being sacrificed with no objective, and terror was undermining British prestige throughout the world.
As a result of underground activities in Palestine, His Majesty's Government was forced to bring forward the debate on Palestine at the United Nations. A special session of the UN was scheduled for April 28, 1947, instead of the later original date, in September.
--- End quote ---
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac12.htm
Ultra Requete:
--- Quote ---Acre was conquered by the Ottomans at the beginning of the 16th century. The governor of Galilee, Ahmed al-Jazzar, developed the town, building a fortress and markets and turning it into the 'main gateway' to Eretz Israel (Palestine). Under the British Mandate, the fortress served as a jail, where underground fighters were imprisoned and where eight Irgun fighters went to the gallows. Acre prison was the most highly-guarded fortress in the country; surrounded by walls and encircled to the east and north by a deep moat; the sea to the west. It was located in the heart of an Arab town with no Jewish inhabitants.
Acre Prison
Eitan Livni
Despite these factors, the underground never ceased to plan their escape. The turning point came when an Arab inmate, in charge of supplying oil to the kitchen, related that while working in the oil storeroom (in the south wall of the fortress), he had heard women's voices. This was reported to Eitan Livni, the most senior Irgun prisoner, who deduced that the south wall of the prison bordered on a street or alley in the Old City. The information was conveyed by underground post to the Irgun General Headquarters, with a proposal that the wall of the oil storehouse be exploited for a break-in to rescue the Irgun inmates.
Amichai Paglin (Gidi), chief operations officer, toured Acre disguised as an Arab, and after thorough scrutiny of the area, concluded that a break-in was indeed possible. After discussions at headquarters, Livni received a letter stating that it was possible to breach the wall from outside, but that the success of the operation depended on the ability of the prisoners to reach the south wall on their own. To that end, explosives, detonators and a fuse were smuggled into the jail by the parents of prisoners, who were permitted to bring their sons delicacies, such as jam, oil, and fruit. The explosives were smuggled in inside a can, under a thick layer of jam. A British sergeant opened the can and examined its contents. When he poked inside, he felt hard lumps (in fact gelignite), but accepted the story that the jam had not gelled properly. The detonators and the fuse were concealed in the false bottom of a container of oil, which was also thoroughly examined. The sergeant poked in a long stick to examine the level of the oil, but since the fuse and the detonators were less than one centimeter thick, he did not notice the false bottom.
At that time, 163 Jews were being held in Acre prison (60 of them Irgun members, 22 Lehi and 5 Haganah, the remainder felons) and 400 Arabs. The Irgun General Headquarters decided that only 41 could be freed (30 Irgun members and 11 Lehi members) because it was technically impossible to find hiding places for a larger number of fugitives. Eitan Livni was given the task of deciding who was to be freed and who would remain in jail (the Lehi prisoners chose their own candidates for escape).
Dov Cohen (Shimshon)
The break-in was planned for Sunday, May 4, 1947 at 4 pm. The day before, the fighters met at a diamond factory in Netanya. A map was pinned up and the briefing began. The first speaker was Amichai Paglin, who explained the plan in detail. He was followed by Dov Cohen (Shimshon), who had been appointed commander of the operation. He revealed that the fighters would be disguised as British soldiers and instructed them to conduct themselves in Acre like 'His Majesty's troops'.
Irgun Fighters in British Uniform
After the fighters had been assigned to their units, they were all given an 'English' haircut. The next day, they were taken to Shuni, a former Crusader fortress (between Binyamina and Zichron Yaakov), then serving as a settlement for the Irgun supporters. Twenty of them wore British Engineering Corps uniforms, while three were dressed as Arabs. After they had been briefed and armed, they set out in a convoy of vehicles including a 3-ton military truck, two military vans with British camouflage colors, and two civilian vans. The convoy was headed by the command jeep, and Shimshon, dressed as a be-medalled British captain, sat beside the driver.
When the convoy reached Acre, the two military vans entered the market, while the truck waited at the gate. Ladders were removed from one of the vehicles and the 'engineering unit' went into the Turkish bath-house in order to 'mend' the telephone lines. They climbed the ladders to the roof adjacent to the fortress wall, and Dov Salomon, the unit commander, helped his deputy, Yehuda Apiryon, to haul up the explosive charges and to hook them to the windows of the prison.
Avshalom Haviv
At the same time, the two blocking squads had scattered mines along the routes leading to the site of the break-in. One three-man squad was commanded by Avshalom Haviv and the second consisted of two fighters, Michaeli and Ostrowicz.
An additional three-man squad, disguised as Arabs, was positioned north of Acre, and when the operation began they fired a mortar at the nearby army camp. The command jeep halted at the gas station at the entrance to the new town, laid anti-vehicle mines and set fire to the station.
Affter-noon walk of Acre prisnors
While these units were taking up positions outside the fortress, the plan was being put into effect inside the prison. At 3pm, the doors of the cells were opened for afternoon exercise. Those prisoners who were not scheduled to escape went down to the courtyard to create a diversion, while the escapees remained in their cells. They were divided into three groups, each in a separate cell.
At 4:22 pm. a loud explosion shook the entire area, as the wall of the fortress was blasted open.
Acre prison's wall after the blowing up
The first group of escapees leapt out of their cell and ran down the corridor towards the breach in the wall. They had to push their way through a crowd of Arab prisoners who ran out of their cells in panic and blocked their path. The first escapee, Michael Ashbel, attached explosive charges to the locks barring the gate of the corridor, and lit the fuse. There was an explosion, and the gate blew open. The second gate was blown open in the same way, opening the route to freedom. At that moment, the second group went into action; they created an obstruction by igniting kerosene mixed with oil. The ensuing fire blocked the escape route, so that the guards could not reach it. The third group threw grenades at the guards on the roof, who fled. In the confusion created by the explosion, the gunfire and the fire, 41 prisoners made their way to freedom.
The first group of escapees boarded a van and drove off, but the driver mistakenly drove towards Haifa, instead of Mount Napoleon. On the shore, a group of British soldiers who had been bathing in the sea opened fire on them. The driver tried to turn back, but hit the wall of the cemetery and the van overturned. The escapees ran towards a gas station, the soldiers pursuing them. Dov Cohen fired his Bren at them, but was mowed down by a volley of 17 bullets. Zalman Lifshitz, at his side, was also killed. When the firing stopped, five of the first group of 13 escapees were dead, six injured and only two were unscathed. The survivors were returned to jail.
Yaakov Weiss
The blocking unit, consisting of Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar and Yaakov Weiss, also suffered a mishap. They did not hear the bugle signal to withdraw and stayed put when the other units had already left Acre. After a protracted battle with British soldiers, they were caught and arrested. The second blocking unit, consisting of Amnon Michaeli and Menahem Ostrowicz, also failed to hear the bugle (which signalled withdrawal) and were likewise caught by the British.
The remaining escapees and members of the strike force in the truck and the second van escaped safely. They reached Kibbutz Dalia, abandoned their vehicles, and made their way on foot to Binyamina. There they were given refuge in the Nahlat Jabotinsky quarter and the following morning were dispersed throughout the country to pre-designated hiding places.
Haim Appelbaum of Lehi, wounded during the retreat, succeeded in boarding the last van, but died soon after. His body was left in the vehicle, and members of Kibbutz Dalia conveyed it to the burial society in Haifa the following day.
To conclude, 27 inmates succeeded in escaping (20 from the Irgun and seven from Lehi). Nine fighters were killed in clashes with the British army; six escapees and three members of the Fighting Force. Eight escapees, some of them injured, were caught and returned to jail. Also arrested were five of the attackers who did not make it back to base. The Arab prisoners took advantage of the commotion, and 182 of them escaped as well.
Despite the heavy toll in human lives, the action was described by foreign journalists as 'the greatest jail break in history'. The London Ha'aretz correspondent wrote on May 5:
The attack on Acre jail has been seen here as a serious blow to British prestige... Military circles described the attack as a strategic masterpiece.
The New York Herald Tribune wrote that the underground had carried out 'an ambitious mission, their most challenging so far, in perfect fashion'.
In the House of Commons, Oliver Stanley asked what action His Majesty's Government was planning to take 'in light of the events at Acre prison which had reduced British prestige to a nadir'.
Shortly after the Acre jail break, Andrei Gromyko, USSR representative to the UN, caused a sensation when he informed the stunned delegates that his country took a favorable view of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Meir Nakar
Three weeks after the jail break, the five Irgun fighters who had been captured after the operation were put on trial. Three of the defendants - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss and Meir Nakar - were carrying weapons when they were caught close to the jail wall. They challenged the authority of the court and, after making political statements, were all sentenced to death.
The other two, Michaeli and Ostrowicz, were captured, unarmed, at some distance from the jail. Since there was a chance of saving them from the death penalty, the Irgun General Headquarters decided to conduct a proper defence procedure. The counsel for the defence succeeded in producing documents proving that the two were minors, and the court sentenced them to life imprisonment.
--- End quote ---
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac13.htm
Ultra Requete:
--- Quote ---SHLOMO BEN-YOSEF
Shlomo Ben-Yosef
As previously mentioned, on April 21, 1938, three members of the Beitar labor company at Rosh Pina (Avraham Shein, Shalom Jurabin and Shlomo Ben-Yosef) fired on an Arab bus on the Safed Rosh-Pina road in reprisal for Arab violence. None of the passengers were hit. The three men fled, hid in an abandoned building nearby and were arrested some time later by the police. They were tried by a military tribunal in Haifa and charged with illegal possession of arms and with 'intent to kill or cause other harm to a large number of people.' Under the Emergency Regulations, each of the charges was a capital offence. The three defendants announced that they intended to exploit the trial for political purposes.
The court pronounced Jurabin mentally unstable, and he was sentenced to incarceration in a mental hospital 'at the discretion of the High Commissioner'. Shein and Ben-Yosef were sentenced to death by hanging and accepted the sentence with exceptional stoicism. The Commander in Chief of British forces in Palestine confirmed Ben-Yosef's sentence, and later commuted Shein's sentence to life imprisonment on account of his youth.
On the morning of June 29, 1938, Shlomo Ben-Yosef prepared for his final hour. He stripped off the scarlet garments of the condemned man, and dressed in shorts, a shirt and work-boots. After breakfast, he brushed his teeth and awaited the police guard. He walked erect to the gallows, singing the Beitar anthem. On the wall of his death cell, Ben-Yosef had written in his poor Hebrew:
What is a homeland?
It is something worth living for, fighting for and dying for.
I was a slave to Beitar to the day of my death
ELIYAHU HAKIM AND ELIYAHU BEIT-ZURI
Eliyahu Bet Zuri
Lord Moyne, who was known to be an anti-Zionist, had been appointed Minister of State for the Middle East, and from his place of residence in Cairo, was responsible for implementing the White Paper policy. Lehi, which considered Lord Moyne to be responsible for the deportation of the immigrant ships, decided to assassinate him. Two members of Lehi - Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri - were dispatched to Cairo, and on November 6, 1944, they carried out the assassination, but were caught shortly afterwards. On January 10, 1945 they were charged with murder. Hakim and Beit-Zuri, manacled, stood calmly beside their Egyptian guards with red fezzes. Both were, and had been since their capture, completely self-possessed. They did not take part in the proceedings, and when the testimony was completed, Eliyahu Hakim rose to his feet and said:
We accuse Lord Moyne and the government he represents, with murdering hundreds and thousands of our brethren; we accuse him of seizing our country and looting our possessions...
We were forced to do justice and to fight.
Eliyahu Hakim
After being sentenced to death, they rose to their feet and sang the national anthem. On March 23, 1945, they were dressed in the traditional, ill-fitting red burlap suit of condemned men, marched barefoot to the gallows, were blindfolded at the scaffold, and hanged.
DOV GRUNER
On Tuesday, April 23, 1946, a military vehicle approached the Ramat Gan police station, and let off about a dozen 'Arab prisoners' , escorted by 'British soldiers'. The 'prisoners' were taken into the station, and the 'British sergeant' in charge of the convoy informed the desk sergeant that the Arabs had been caught stealing at the Tel Litvinsky army camp (present-day Tel Hashomer) and were to be detained. While the desk sergeant was deciding what to do with them, the 'prisoners' and their escorts took out revolvers and ordered the policemen to put up their hands and file into the detention cell. Within moments, the unit had taken over the police station, and then moved towards the armory, blasting open the door. Meanwhile the 'porters', led by Dov Gruner, had entered the building. They removed the weapons from the armory and loaded them onto a waiting truck. A policeman on the upper storey noticed the activity, and directed machine-gun fire at the attackers. He shot the Irgun Bren gunner, who had taken up position on the balcony of the building opposite the police station, and then fired at the 'porters', who continued to load weapons while bullets whistled around them. When they had completed their task, the truck drove off to an orange grove near Ramat Gan.
Dov Gruner
The commander of the operation, Eliezer Pedatzur (Gad), counted his men and discovered that three were missing: the Bren gunner Yisrael Feinerman, who had been shot and killed while covering the 'porters' from the balcony of the building opposite the police station; Yaakov Zlotnik, who was fatally wounded while running to the truck (his body was discovered hanging on the barbed wire) and Dov Gruner, who had sustained jaw injury, had fallen into the trench beside the fence and was taken captive. The British took Gruner to Hadassah hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was operated by Professor Marcus. Gruner spent twelve days at Hadassah, with an armed guard posted outside his room around the clock. From there, he was transferred to the government hospital in Jaffa, and then to the medical division of the central jail in Jerusalem.
On January 1, 1947, seven months after his arrest, Gruner's trial opened at the military court in Jerusalem. He was charged with firing on policemen, and setting explosive charges with the intent of killing personnel 'on His Majesty's service'. When asked if he admitted his guilt, Gruner replied that he did not recognize the authority of the court to try him, had no intention of taking part in the proceedings, which he did not want translated into Hebrew for his benefit. Instead, he read a statement to the judges:
I do not recognize your authority to try me. This court has no legal foundation, since it was appointed by a regime without legal foundation.
You came to Palestine because of the commitment you undertook at the behest of all the nations of the world to rectify the greatest wrong caused to any nation in the history of mankind, namely the expulsion of Israel from their land, which transformed them into victims of persecution and incessant slaughter throughout the world. It was this commitment - and this commitment alone - which constituted the legal and moral basis for your presence in this country. But you betrayed it wilfully, brutally and with satanic cunning. You turned your commitment into a mere scrap of paper...
When the prevailing government in any country is not legal, when it becomes a regime of oppression and tyranny, it is the right of its citizens - more than that, it is their duty - to fight this regime and to topple it. This is what Jewish youth are doing and will continue to do until you quit this land, and hand it over to its rightful owners: the Jewish people. For you should know this: there is no power in the world which can sever the tie between the Jewish people and their one and only land. Whosoever tries to sever it - his hand will be cut off and the curse of God will rest on him for ever.
There was a silence in the courtroom after Gruner's statement. The prosecutor delivered his address and summoned witnesses .In an unusual move, the prosecutor pointed out several factors in favor of the accused: his five years' service in the British army, his good conduct during his service, his participation in fighting on the Italian front and the severe injury he suffered, which left him disabled. This statement had no effect on the judges, and after a brief consultation, the president of the court announced that Gruner had been found guilty on two charges. On the first charge, he was sentenced to be hung by the neck. The court reserved the right to determine the punishment for the second charge. Immediately after the reading of the sentence , Gruner rose to his feet and declared:
"In blood and fire Judea fell, in blood and fire Judea will rise again"
- a quotation from a poem written by the poet Yaakov Cohen after the 1903 Kishinev pogroms, which became the slogan of the Hashomer organization.
A poster published by the Irgun
Dov Gruner was taken to the death cell under heavy guard, and dressed in scarlet garments. He spent 105 days in the cell, alternating between hope and despair, while leaders and public figures in Palestine and abroad interceded with the British government to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Heavy pressure was also exerted on Gruner to plead for clemency, but he insisted on being treated as a prisoner of war and refused to sign the request.
Forty eight hours before the date fixed for the execution, Gruner wrote a letter from his cell to the Irgun commander, which he concluded with the following words:
I am writing these lines 48 hours before our oppressors are due to carry out the murder, and at such times one cannot lie. I swear that if I had the choice of starting again, I would choose the same path I have followed regardless of the possible consequences for me.
MORDECHAI ALKAHI, YEHIEL DRESNER AND ELIEZER KASHANI
Benyamin Kimchi, who was arrested after the Irgun attack on the Ottoman Bank in Jaffa, was sentenced in December 1946 to 18 years imprisonment and 18 lashes. It was the first time that an underground fighter had been given this humiliating sentence. The Irgun General Headquarters took a very severe view of the sentence, and cautioned the British against carrying it out. "If it is implemented," they wrote in a leaflet which was widely distributed, "the same punishment will be inflicted on British army officers. Each of them will be liable to receive 18 lashes."
The British ignored the Irgun warnings, and on Friday, December 27, 1946, Kimchi received 18 lashes in the Jerusalem jail. Immediately afterwards, a unit of Irgun fighters was sent into action. A captain from the Sixth Airborne Division was whipped in Netanya, two British sergeants in Tel Aviv, and another sergeant in Rishon Lezion.
Another unit (composed of Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi, Eliezer Kashani, Haim Golovsky and Avraham Mizrahi) set out by car from Petah Tikva on a similar mission. Not far from Wilhelma, they encountered a road-block and came under heavy fire. Mizrahi, the driver, was hit and died later. The other four were dragged out of the vehicle and taken to a nearby army camp, where they were stripped, beaten and humiliated. After five days of torture they were taken to the central prison in Jerusalem.
Yehiel Dresner
On February 10, 1947, 43 days after their capture and arrest, their trial opened at a military court in Jerusalem. The defendants did not take part in the proceedings, refused to answer questions and did not cross-examine prosecution witnesses. When the testimony was completed, Dresner and Golovsky rose to their feet and declared that they did not recognize the authority of the court; they considered themselves to be prisoners of war and hence the authorities were empowered to detain them, but not to try them.
Yehiel Dresner, the first to speak, said:
We set out to prove to you that a new Hebrew generation has arisen in this country, which will not tolerate humiliation, will not accept slavery and will fight for its honor at all costs. We will break your whip...
No longer will you whip the citizens of this country, whether Jews or Arabs, for we, the soldiers of Israel, have rebelled against your rule and its despicable methods.
Golovsky's statement was also directed at 'the officers of the occupation army' and was devoted mainly to a description of the persecution, torture and humiliation to which the four defendants had been subjected. His aim was to inform the world, through the foreign journalists present in court, of the degrading treatment they had received at the hands of the British.
Eliezer Kashani
The trial was brief and the sentence was handed down on the same day: death by hanging for Alkahi, Dresner and Kashani, and life imprisonment for Golovsky on account of his youth (he was 17). After hearing the sentence, the four rose to their feet and sang the Hatikva anthem. They were taken to the central jail, where Dov Gruner was in the death cell. Forty-eight hours later, General Barker, who left the country the same day, confirmed the sentences.
Public figures and institutions tried hard to have the sentence commuted. A petition was submitted, signed by 800 residents of Petah Tikva (three of the defendants lived there), and an appeal was submitted to the Supreme Court, claiming errors in legal procedure, but to no avail. It should be stressed that all these steps were taken on the initiative of public figures and relatives of the defendants. They themselves authorized nobody to act on their behalf and, like Dov Gruner, refused to sign an appeal for clemency. They even issued a public statement in which they said:
Do you not understand that your requests for clemency are an affront to your honor and the honor of the entire people? It represents servility towards the authorities reminiscent of the Diaspora. We are war prisoners and we demand that they treat us as war prisoners...
At present we are in their hands... We cannot resist them, and they can treat us as they choose... But they cannot break our spirit. We know how to die with honor as befits Hebrews.
Mordechai Alkahi
On April 15, the British transferred the four condemned men: Gruner, Alkahi, Dresner and Kashani from Jerusalem jail to Acre prison. The move was carried out clandestinely, and the authorities hinted that they had no intention of carrying out the sentence in the near future. When their lawyer, Max Critchman, approached the Acre prison authorities, and asked why they were being moved, he was told that "...the governor has received no instructions regarding preparations for executions, and the procedure is that the jail administration receives such instructions several days before the executions."
The next day, at 2.45 am, three British policemen and one Arab policeman came to the apartment of Nehemiah Katriel Magril, the only Jew living in Acre. Magril was a scholar, who acted as emissary to the Jewish inmates of the jail and led the prayers there on the Sabbath and festivals. He had never been ordained as a rabbi, and was known among the Arabs as 'Hakham Abu Mussa'. Ha'aretz, Sapril 17, 1947, describes the visit:
The policemen awakened Magril and asked him to accompany them to the jail. They refused to reveal the reason for their request and urged him to hurry, saying that they had no time. When Magril asked them how long they needed him for, they replied: 'About two hours'. Then he understood the meaning of the request and replied: 'I refuse to go with you. You must contact the chief rabbinate in Haifa'.
The policemen left without him. Magril learned of the execution of Dov Gruner and his comrades only a few hours later, from a Jerusalem radio broadcast.
At 4 am, Dov Gruner was roused from his sleep, and taken to the gallows. Present in the cell were the head of the prison service in Palestine, the governor of Acre jail, a physician and six British officers. As was the custom in Britain and the colonies, the governor served as hangman, but, in violation of custom - no rabbi was present. Dov Gruner went to the gallows without confession, as so did Yehiel Dresner, Eliezer Kashani and Mordechai Alkahi. All four were hanged within half an hour, and each of them, as his turn arrived, sang Hatikva until he died. Each was joined in his singing by those awaiting their turn.
As the condemned men walked through the jail, all the Jewish prisoners rose to their feet and sang the national anthem.
MOSHE BARAZANI
In March 17, 1947, the day on which martial law was lifted, the military court in Jerusalem sentenced Moshe Barazani to death by hanging. Barazani, a member of Lehi, had been arrested eight days previously in the Makor Baruch quarter of Jerusalem, not far from Schneller camp. In a body search, a grenade was found, and he was tried on a charge of bearing arms and intent to assassinate Brigadier A.P. Davis, who was in charge of implementing martial law in the city. Barazani declared that he did not recognise the authority of the court to try him, and would not take part in the proceedings. He made a political statement, in which he said that the Jewish people regarded the British as alien rulers of their country:
In this war, I have fallen captive to you, and you have no right to try me. You will not intimidate us by hangings nor will you succeed in destroying us. My people and all the people you have enslaved will fight your empire to the death.
Moshe Barazani
The trial was brief; ninety minutes after it began, the judge read out the death sentence. Barazani rose to his feet and sang Hatikva, but the police guard interrupted him and dragged him away. He was chained hand and foot and taken to the condemned man's cell, where he joined Dov Gruner and his three comrades - Eliezer Kashani, Yehiel Dresner and Mordechai Alkahi, whose death sentences had already been confirmed by the British Commander in Chief in Palestine.
MEIR FEINSTEIN
A week after Barazani's trial, on March 25, 1947, the military court convened again - this time to try the four Irgun fighters who had been caught after the explosion at the Jerusalem railway station. Two of the defendants, Mas'ud Biton and Moshe Horovitz, were apprehended at some distance from the station, and the Irgun General Headquarters decided that they should deny any involvement in the deed. Horovitz was arrested with a bullet wound, but one of the traders at the commercial center agreed to testify that Horovitz had been in his store, had heard shots fired and had gone out to see what was happening and been wounded. The other two, Meir Feinstein and Daniel Azulay, announced that they did not recognize the authority of the court to try them, and would not take part in the proceedings. Before sentence was passed, the two made political statements. Feinstein said:
A gallows regime, that is what you are trying to impose on this country, which was intended to serve as a beacon of light for all mankind. And in your foolishness and malice, you assume that by means of this regime you will succeed in breaking the spirit of our people, the people for whom the whole country has become a gallows. You are wrong. You will discover that you have met up with steel, steel forged in the flame of love and hatred, love of the homeland and of freedom and hatred of slavery and of the invader. It is burning steel, and you cannot shatter it. You will burn your own hands.
Meir Feinstein
The court accepted the alibi of Horovitz and Biton and released them. Meir Feinstein and Daniel Azulay were sentenced to death by hanging. They were removed from court and taken to the death cell in the central prison in Jerusalem, where they joined Gruner, Alkahi, Dresner, Kashani and Barazani.
On April 17, 1947, the day after the hanging of Gruner, Alkahi, Dresner and Kashani, the British Commander in Chief in Palestine confirmed the sentences of Feinstein and Barazani. Daniel Azulay's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
A GRENADE BETWEEN HEARTS
In the death cell in the central prison in Jerusalem, Feinstein and Barazani resolved to blow themselves and their executioners up. They wrote to their comrades in adjacent cells:
Brethren, greetings.
You have not done well in failing to send it to us. Who knows if by morning it will not be too late. Do not allow time to lapse. Send it to us as soon as possible. All you have been told was merely an emotional storm which passed swiftly. We are fully resolved. Our greetings to all. Be strong and so will we.
M.F., M. B.
"It" referred to the two grenades which Feinstein and Barazani planned to hurl at the executioners when they came to escort them to the gallows. The idea was not new; it had been broached when Dov Gruner was in the death cell awaiting execution. The explosives were smuggled into the prison in parcels of food earmarked for prisoners who received "special treatment". When Dov Gruner was moved with his comrades to Acre prison, the explosives were left behind in the Jerusalem jail.
It was not easy for the Irgun and Lehi prisoners to carry out the wishes of their condemned comrades, but each of them knew that if he had been in their place, he would have asked the same. On the day on which they received confirmation of their request from the Irgun and Lehi headquarters, the prisoners started to prepare the grenades. They sliced off the top of an orange, scooped out the fruit and filled the space with gelignite and small metal strips. Into this they inserted detonators connected to a fuse. Finally, the top of the orange was replaced with thin toothpicks, so that it appeared intact.
Three times a day, the condemned men were handed food prepared by inmates who worked in the kitchen. The prison guards, who examined the food carefully, were accustomed to the sight of oranges, and passed them through without particular scrutiny. A basket of fruit was prepared, which included two 'special' oranges. The food was taken into the cell by one of the non-political prisoners, and a note on a tiny scrap of paper hidden in the leftovers was removed from the cell:
Greetings, dear friends.
We have received the "press". Everything is clear to us, and we rejoice at this last opportunity to take part in avenging our four comrades. As for us, we are convinced that our organizations will avenge us to the proper degree and in the proper fashion. But they may take us by surprise and move us to Acre, and therefore please ask outside that they prepare the same thing for us in Acre, so that we can be sure of doing it.
We are strong.
Shalom.
M. Feinstein and M. Barazani.
On Monday, April 21, 1947, about a week after the hangings at Acre, curfew was imposed on Jerusalem and it was rumored that Feinstein and Barazani were about to be executed. At 9:15 in the evening, British officers arrived at the home of Rabbi Yaakov Goldman, chief rabbi of the prison, and asked him to accompany them to the central prison. They did not give reasons, but it was clear to all that Feinstein and Barazani were about to be hanged. Rabbi Goldman was taken into the death cell, and tried to hearten the two fighters. He read the Viduy (confession) and, at the request of Feinstein, they sang the Adon Olam (the most hail and praise to God prayer). Then the two condemned men sang Hatikva, and the rabbi left with the prison governor, promising to return to be with them in their final hour.
Feinstein and Barazani did not reveal their secret to the rabbi, but urged him not to return for the execution. The rabbi was adamant, and in order not to hurt him, the two decided to change their original plan and to blow themselves up before the hangman arrived. About half an hour after the rabbi's departure, two explosions were heard from the cell: Moshe and Meir stood embraced. The grenades were held between them, at the height of their hearts. Meir lit a cigarette, with which he ignited the fuses that Moshe held, and they died together as heroes.
On the instructions of the chief rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, the two men were buried on the Mount of Olives in the section of the martyrs of the 1929 and 1936-38 riots. Rabbi Aryeh Levin (the prisoners' rabbi) and Benyamin Feinstein, Meir's brother, eulogized them at the graveside.
The courageous stand of the underground fighters in their final hour won them great esteem in Eretz Israel and throughout the world. A new generation had emerged in Palestine, ready to sacrifice itself for the noble objective of liberating its people and country. The poet, Nathan Alterman, who was an opponent of the Irgun and Lehi, published a poem in praise of Feinstein and Barazani in 'Davar', the Histadrut newspaper.
AVSHALOM HAVIV, YAAKOV WEISS AND MEIR NAKAR
Avshalom Haviv
On May 28, some three weeks after the Acre prison break, the British tried Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss and Meir Nakar, who had been caught just outside the prison wall carrying weapons. Haviv and his comrades did not acknowledge the right of the court to try them, and chose to exploit the forum in order to make political statements. They did not take part in the trial, which lasted nearly three weeks, with more than 35 prosecution witnesses being called. After the prosecutor's summing up, the defendants made their statements.
The first speaker was Avshalom Haviv, who compared the struggle of the Jewish underground to that of the Irish, and said, among other things:
When the fighters of the Irish underground took up arms against you, you tried to drown the uprising against tyranny in rivers of blood. You built gallows; you murdered people in the streets; you banished some into distant lands. You thought, in your great folly, that by force of persecution, you could break the spirit of resistance of the free Irish, but you were wrong. The Irish rebellion grew until a free Ireland came into being...You wonder how it came to pass that those Jews whom you thought to be cowards, who were the victims of massacre for generations, have risen up against your rule, are fighting your armies, and when they stand in the shadow of death, they scorn it... Their courage and spiritual force are drawn from two sources: the renewed contact of Hebrew youth with the land of their fathers, which has restored to them the tradition of courage of the heroes of the past, and the lesson of the Holocaust, which taught us that we are conducting a struggle not only for our liberty but also for our very survival.
Meir Nakar
Meir Nakar, in his statement, also spoke of the 'bankruptcy' of British policy in Palestine and the collapse of a regime "whose officials are forced to live in ghettoes" (an allusion to the security zones in which the British enclosed themselves).
Yaakov Weiss
Yaakov Weiss attacked the anti-Zionist policy of the British government and denied the legitimacy of British presence in Palestine:
Your very presence here, against which everyone protests, is illegal. This land is ours from time immemorial and for ever more. What do you, British officers, have to do with our homeland? Who appointed you rulers of an ancient and freedom-loving nation?
On June 16, the sentence was passed: death by hanging for all three.
The Irgun General Headquarters ordered its Fighting Force to take hostages so as to save the lives of the condemned men, but the British ignored the warnings of the Irgun, and the pleas of leaders of the Yishuv and of many prominent people throughout the world. On July 8, the governor of the British military forces in Palestine confirmed the death sentence handed down three weeks previously. Several days later, an Irgun unit seized two British sergeants in Netanya as they were leaving a cafe. The sergeants were pushed into a waiting car and taken to a pre-arranged hiding place.
The kidnapping of the sergeants stunned not only the British, but also the leaders of the Yishuv. They knew only too well that the Irgun would carry out its threat, and feared the reaction of the British army.
As soon as the kidnapping became known, curfew was imposed on Netanya and the surrounding area, and a house to house search began. Haganah forces joined in the search, but without success. The two sergeants were held in a bunker which had been dug in a diamond factory on the outskirts of the town, with enough food and oxygen for a lengthy period. The taking of hostages by the Irgun did not deter the British government, and in the early morning hours of July 29, the three Irgun fighters - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss and Meir Nakar - were hanged at Acre prison. It should be noted that the decision to carry out the sentence was taken at a special session of the Cabinet in London, despite the knowledge that the decision would seal the fate of the two sergeants. Rabbi Nissim Ohana of Haifa, who was asked to accompany the three condemned men in their final hour, wrote of their conduct:
They showed no sign of fear or shock. They were very brave...
I stayed with them about an hour, and when I left, they asked me to send their greetings to the Yishuv, and expressed the wish for redemption for the Jewish people. I said to them: be blessed, heroes of the nation.
The British left the Irgun no alternative, and the following day, July 30, the two sergeants were found hanged in a wood near Netanya. The Irgun hoped that this action would bring to a halt the spate of executions meted out by the British. Indeed, after the hanging of the two sergeants, no more death sentences were carried out in Eretz Israel.
The hanging of the sergeants shocked the British government and people. The press denounced the act which, more than any other, caused the government to re-think its attitude towards the future of Palestine. Begin writes in his book "The Revolt" that the "cruel act" was one of the events which tipped the balance in the British withdrawal from Palestine. Colonel Archer Cassett,.one of the senior British Mandatory officials, said in a lecture in 1949 that "the hanging of the sergeants did more than anything else to get us out of Palestine".
--- End quote ---
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac14.htm
Some time the terror is best weapon; especialy against those who don't fallow reason or morality.
Ultra Requete:
--- Quote ---THE DEPORTATION OF THE 251
On Thursday, October 19, 1944, at 4:30 am, a large British military force surrounded the Latrun internment camp. At 6 am, a list of 239 internees was read out. They were handcuffed, searched, and taken out of the camp without being permitted to take anything with them. Loaded onto trucks which formed a convoy, they were escorted by armored cars to the Wilhelma airfield. There they were joined by 12 inmates from Acre prison, who had arrived an hour earlier.
The 251 detainees were divided into 12 groups, and each group boarded an aircraft, accompanied by armed guards. When it became clear to the prisoners that they were being deported, they burst into a mighty rendering of Hatikva. The 12 planes flew to Asmara, capital of Eritrea; the following day the internees were taken from the airfield to their first place of exile in Africa - Sambel camp, two kilometers north of Asmara.
The Mandatory government continued to exile persons suspected of terrorist affiliation. In all, 439 people were deported by the end of the Mandate.
The Yishuv reacted with restraint to news of the deportation. The Jewish Agency Executive kept silent and the Vaad Le'umi responded with quiet protest. The Hebrew press did not take up arms, and 'Davar' (the Histadrut newspaper) wrote that if the underground was unwilling to abandon its separate path "it should not wonder at the fact that the Yishuv is reacting in this way". It will be recalled that in May 1944, about six months before the deportation, the Jewish Agency had resumed its collaboration with the Mandatory government and was once again informing on underground fighters and foiling Irgun and Lehi operations. Eight days after the deportation of the 251 fighters, the Yishuv was shocked by the assassination of Lord Moyne in Cairo, and cooperation with the British police, the so-called Season, was now overt and extensive.
A poster published by the Irgun
SAMBEL CAMP IN ERITREA
Sambel camp in Erritrea had served in the past as a recreation center for Italian fascist youth and the living conditions were no worse than in Latrun. But, despite the good conditions and comfortable climate, the internees suffered in the first few months from lack of clothing and everyday necessities, from the absence of books and religious articles. Two months after their arrival at Sambel, food rations were cut drastically. The move apparently stemmed from the general wartime shortage of food, but this fact did not appease the prisoners, who launched a partial hunger strike. Several weeks later, the rations were restored to their former size.
On January 21, 1945, three months after their arrival in Eritrea, the internees made their first escape attempt. The weak spot was the sports ground outside the camp, which was open to the internees all day, but locked in the evening and unguarded all night. The rain had created a trench in one corner of the sport ground, which was the inmates excavated further. On the day of the escape, Benyamin Zeroni, Haggai Lev and Shimon Sheiba hid in the trench and covered themselves with soil. When the sports ground had been locked and darkness fell, they emerged from their "tomb", climbed the fence and headed for Asmara. They spent the first night in a field near the town and the next day boarded a bus and asked the driver to let them off at the synagogue (there was a Jewish community in Asmara, consisting of fifty families of Yemenite origin). There they met Haim Gamliel, who gave them money, and hid them in his house. The aim of the three fugitives was to reach Ethiopia. Near the border, a local patrol checked the identity of the passengers; the three came under suspicion, and were handed over to the British, who returned them to the camp and imposed a month's solitary confinement on them.
Three days after the escape the internees were evacuated from Sambel and taken to Massawa port. There they were put aboard an Italian vessel and, under intolerably crowded conditions, transferred to Carthage in the Sudan.
A poster published by the Irgun
THE INTERNMENT CAMP AT CARTHAGE, SUDAN,
The internment camp at carthage was located in the heart of the desert and endured a harsh climate. Water was in short supply - drinking water was transported in scant quantities by car from dozens of kilometers away. The piped water was salty, and its consumption restricted. Khartoum, the nearest town with a military hospital, was 600 kilometers away. Carthage was much tougher than Sambel in terms of accommodation, sanitation and climate.
In addition to the problem of poor nutrition, a controversy raged on the issue of kosher food. At the beginning of November, 1944, the authorities cancelled the supply of kosher meat which they had been purchasing from the Jewish community in Asmara, and offered instead canned non-kosher meat from British army rations. The internees launched a protest against this change, which offended both the religious and secular alike. Echoes of the protest reached Palestine, and the chief rabbinate, with the aid of the Jewish Agency, appealed to the High Commissioner to send a rabbi and a ritual slaughterer (shohet) to the camp. On March 15, Rabbi Yaakov Shraibom and the shohet, Rabbi Rosenberg, reached the camp. They were housed outside the fence and were permitted to come and go at will. Their free movement was exploited by the interneess to get information from, and establish contact with, the outside world, which was vital to their escape plans.
Yaakov Meridor
On September 26, 1945, three Irgun members (Yaakov Yundof, Yaakov Meridor and Shimon Sheiba) left the camp concealed in a tanker which had brought in water. The driver, who had been bribed, brought them to a spot close to the railroad station, and left them there. They spent the night in a field, and the next day boarded a train for Port Sudan, where they planned to rent a boat to take them to Aqaba. They posed as Polish intelligence officers working for the British, and were equipped with wooden revolvers (which looked just like the real thing) and forged documents. Their comrades in the camp covered their escape and hindered the search after their absence was discovered. As was customary in internment camps, all the inmates were counted every evening. The count was not conducted simultaneously in all the huts, but consecutively. The interval between the counts enabled three inmates to slip out of a hut which had already been inspected, and to be counted again in other huts. They moved from hut to hut through windows whose bars had been sawn through in such a way that they could be lifted out and replaced without detection.
The escapees reached Port Sudan as planned, and spent three days searching for a vessel which would transport them to Aqaba (the Irgun General Headquarters had sent them a considerable sum of money). However, they aroused the suspicion of the hotel owner where they were staying, and were forced to leave. They contacted a Jewish merchant, but he was unwilling to risk helping them. They had no alternative but to travel to Khartoum by train. At one of the stations, British officers boarded the train and recognized them. On September 26, six days after their escape, they were handed back to the authorities.
BACK TO SAMBEL CAMP, ERITREA
The internees spent nine months in the Sudan; on October 9, 1945, they were evacuated from Carthage and, after a four-day journey by train and truck, found themselves back at Sambel. Two months later, 35 new internees joined them and were housed in a special camp several hundred meters from the veterans. On January 17, 1946, a dispute broke out between one of the internees, Eliyahu Ezra, and a Sudanese sentinel, resulting in Ezra being shot and wounded. The injured man was carried to the gate for transfer to the first aid station outside the camp. When the guards refused to let them out, the internees began banging on the gate, and fire was opened on them from all sides. Eliyahu Ezra and Shaul Haglili were killed, and 12 others were injured. Only then was the gate opened. The medical officer and several medical orderlies hastened to the aid of the injured, who were then taken to a military hospital. Ezra and Haglili were buried in the cemetery of the Jewish community in Asmara.
The incident caused great agitation among the prisoners, who demanded that an external committee of enquiry be set up to investigate the events. The Yishuv, which was united at that time within the framework of the United Resistance, was in uproar. In contrast to previous occasions, the Hebrew press was unanimous in its demand for an investigation into the murder, and the return of the internees to Eretz Israel. The Irgun, as well as Lehi, refrained from initiating reprisals in order to avoid undermining the solidarity of the United Resistance.
A month after the return to Sambel, on November 10, 1945, four internees (Yaakov Gurevitz, Benyamin Zeroni, Eliyahu Lankin and Rahamim Mizrahi) escaped at night via the unguarded sports ground. Their objective was to seek out escape routes for a larger group, which would break out by digging a tunnel.
Two months after their escape, on January 13, 1946, Gurevitz and Zeroni set out by bus for Ethiopia. They were disguised as veiled Arab women, and were accompanied by a Jew who lived in Asmara and posed as an Arab travelling with his two wives. At one of the Ethiopian border towns, the three entered a hotel to rest, but aroused the suspicion of the bellboy, who summoned the police. The three men were arrested and interrogation revealed their true identity. The British asked the Ethiopian authorities to extradite them, but encountered objections. After seven months of negotiations, they were finally handed over and sent back to Sambel.
Eliyahu Lankin, who set out in mid-June (about six months after the escape) from Asmara to Addis Ababa, was more fortunate. After five adventurous months he reached Djibouti by plane and on January 7, 1947, sailed aboard a French boat to Marseille and from there travelled to Paris. Lankin was the first escapee to succeed in reaching his destination.
Rahamim Mizrahi remained in Asmara, where he tried to create suitable conditions for the absorption of the large group scheduled to escape via the tunnel.
A poster published by the Irgun
THE ESCAPE OF THE 54
The inmates spent five months digging two tunnels: the first 32 meters and the second 70 meters long. Both had a diameter of 45 cm, sufficient for a man to crawl through. The work was carried out in three shifts, and two-thirds of the internees took part. The problem of disposing of the sand was solved by packing it in cloth bags and scattering it during the exercise walk in the sports ground. The excavation created numerous technical problems, such as introducing an electrical wire for illumination, supports for the roof to prevent a cave-in, ventilation etc. However, the main problem was how to conceal the work in the tunnel from the camp guards, who conducted routine checks of the huts.
The internees managed to overcome all these obstacles and on Saturday night, June 29, 1946, they were ready for action. That evening, 54 inmates escaped from the camp in two groups: 30 through the large tunnel, and 24 through the smaller one. The two groups emerged from the tunnels equipped with maps, and knapsacks packed with food and first aid kits. The larger group was disguised in British army uniform - sewn by the inmates, who scrupulously copied every detail, from insignia to rank. The "soldiers" took over an Italian bus which was returning soldiers to the camp, and drove off towards the Ethiopian border. An engine problem forced them to continue their journey on foot, and the following day they were discovered by armed villagers and handed over to the authorities. The second group, in civilian clothing, succeeded in reaching a pre-designated hiding place in Asmara. For three months they sought further escape routes, but all their attempts to leave Asmara were unsuccessful. Finally, on September 24, their hiding place was surrounded by British security forces, and the last escapees were returned to the internment camp.
The prisoners made further escape attempts, but all ended in failure. As a result of these attempts, which greatly embarrassed the camp command and army headquarters in Eritrea, the British government decided to transfer the prisoners to Kenya.
THE INTERNMENT CAMP AT GILGIL, KENYA
On March 2, 1947, all the internees were evacuated from Sambel, loaded onto trucks and transferred under heavy guard to Massawa port. There they boarded a ship and sailed to Mombasa, Kenya, under conditions of intolerable heat and overcrowding. From the port they were taken on a twenty-hour train journey in freight cars to the internment camp at Gilgil.
The internment camp at Gilgil
Gilgil camp had been used in the past as a jail for soldiers serving sentences for criminal offences and the living conditions and sanitation were very poor. There were no windows in the dormitories, apart from a tiny barred aperture under the roof, and the sewage conduits were open and crisscrossed the camp. The climate was harsh and mosquitoes swarmed everywhere. The internees refused to accept the situation and some two weeks after arriving, they rebelled. They tore openings in the walls and covered the sewage conduits with stones which they had removed from the walls. The camp commander subsequently improved conditions and the camp became tolerable.
The British authorities hoped, vainly, that the remote location of the camp would preclude escape attempts. Shortly after their move to Gilgil, however, the prisoners began to excavate a tunnel and made various further attempts.
The last successful escape took place on March 29, 1948. During the evening, six inmates (Yaakov Meridor, Nathan Germant, Reuven Franco and Yaakov Hillel of the Irgun, and Shlomo Ben Shlomo and David Yanai of Lehi) crawled through an eighty-meter tunnel and emerged on the other side of the camp fence. They proceeded towards their meeting place with "Wilson" (one of the two emissaries who had come specially from South Africa to help them), who was waiting for them in a rented car. They crossed the border to Uganda with passports brought from South Africa and, after a short rest, approached the Belgian consul for visas to Belgian Congo. From there they flew to Brussels, arriving two days later.
Lengthy imprisonment anywhere, but especially in a remote location, can cause physical and emotional illness. In order to preclude these, the internees began, from the very first days of exile, to organize social and cultural activities. A library was set up, which in Gilgil contained some three thousand volumes. A daily newspaper and a philosophical and literary journal were produced. Various courses were held, and lectures given on literature, the natural sciences and contemporary affairs. Many of the internees took correspondence courses at secondary and university levels, most of them at British institutions, and studied economics, law, accountancy and even architecture and engineering. In addition to their academic pursuits, the detainees played sport and exercised.
In one of his letters, Aryeh Ben-Eliezer (a member of the Irgun General Headquarters before his arrest) described the cultural and social activities in the camp, but concluded as follows:
From the diverse activities mentioned in my letter, you could gain the impression that we are living in a paradise. Nonetheless, I pray to the Lord above to take pity on me and send me Eve, so that I can sin and be banished from Eden.
On the morning of July 12, 1948, the drama of African exile ended, when the British ship Ocean Vigour, with 262 exiles aboard, reached Israeli territorial waters. An Israeli Navy vessel came out of Tel Aviv port to greet them, and the captain, Mila Brenner, hailed them: "This is the captain speaking.
Welcome home!
We have been sent to greet the exiles who are returning home.
From now on, you are free citizens of the State of Israel".
--- End quote ---
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac15.htm
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version