EXCERPTS from a diary written by CHAYIM "ELNAKAM" APELBOIM (LECHI freedom fighter) United Resistance Movement: November 1945 - July 1946 Kishon railway workshop in 11 killed; 23 wounded and taken prisoners; 9 evaded capture For days now observations and inspections have been going on in situ, and plans made accordingly. Silence. Every man has his weapon in hand, and his soul ready. The lorry starts. Gazing quietly into each other?s face ... each of us knows what is going through the other?s mind. Some of us will not return. But no matter. We are prepared. It is necessary; it will be worth it. Aryeh and Petachyah have fallen. Brave, tried Petachyah! you who used to say ?I got out safe this time but next time they?ll get me!? Your desolate wife will understand, teach your infant son to remember ... Aryeh! Fallen in your second battle, future engineer and builder, builder of your race, builder of ?My heart!? The voice of a fallen comrade. Another, Noah, charges us: ?They?ve got me! Carry on, fighters of (The British) will search for the tiniest flicker of fear in our eyes. They will not find it! ... we are Hebrew fighters, proud in the knowledge of our strength, of our duty, of our cause and the sacrifices it exacts. Not another groan of anguish will escape our lips ... A certain Martin goes through the routine questions ... ?Where do you live!? Most of us reply simply: ?Eretz We have been smitten, but our spirit is firm. Our clothes are red and drenched with blood, our comrades? blood ... We are miraculously alive, and we shall remember ... The fallen ones ... Stalwart, brave, strong of spirit, they left home, mother, father, children, wife; they left to fight, to win freedom for themselves, their people, their homeland; and they fell, paid with their life blood, their life. That is our destiny. Willingly we have accepted it, willingly we fulfill it. The LECHI was the first underground group to exploit the courtroom with each prisoner making an ideological declaration. (In the trial of the 23 captured LECHI fighters) a special law was quickly passed (by the British military court) to allow the trial to continue in the absence of the defendants. (The LECHI prisoners) brought in to hear the verdicts sang so loud that they were unaware at first that the 19 men had been sentenced to death and the four women received life imprisonment. It was expected. We are imprisoned. We break out in song. The Arabs wonder. While we are eating, a guest enters (the prison) ... Martin. He has come to identify the men. He shows us the photos of our casualties. One of us lets fall: ?... is dead.? ?Oh, yes, he is dead,? echoes Martin in a tone of mockery. Cold, cruel, officious Martin! We swear in our hearts that if ever we get out the first man we?ll square accounts with will be Martin. The Fortress of ?We have brought a Shalom Aleichem.? Greetings, brothers! We bring you glad tidings that the fight goes on! We are not depressed in our sorrow, brothers! We know our comrades have fallen fighting, not led to slaughter like sheep, in incinerators. In our cells we sing as one man ... We have passed the test, O Lord God, and we have not been found wanting. ?David, King of Israel, lives and endures!? This is the faith in which our ancestors lived and died in three score and ten exiles. We sing and dance as those who come up form blood ... We exchange experiences ... ?Beruryah escaped from the lorry,? someone relates. ?I saw and heard her when she died. I heard her say as she lifted her eyes to the star-spangled sky, ?How beautiful is our Motherland!? Beruryah who had come to our shores only a short fortnight ago!? We recall the days of persecution of brother by brother, of spying and informing. We have learned the hard necessity to resist, to strike back and fight; forged a might spirit of faith in our strength, our endurance, our goal. It is hard, very hard to be reconciled to our losses. Again and again one hopes against hope that maybe, perhaps, not all of our missing comrades are lost. ?Though the road is strewn with thorns ... the scion of the Maccabees will ever bend the knee? ... There is one address for all: Eretz There is one profession for all: Fighters for Freedom. We go down in ignominy and defeat ... or we declare war, a war of the people, the Jewish people, the peoples of the earth. When will our official leaders begin to understand this? In the evening we hear of the visit Weitzman paid the High Commissioner. The heavy hand of the tyrant is upon the land, and the ?old man? runs to placate, to ask for mercy. Galuth! When will we break out of Galuth? Mass Meetings to drain off the righteous anger, hatred and passion of the people and send them quietly home to embrace - a cold settlement! We look calm enough - outwardly. Inside we are deeply troubled. It is hard to put out of our inner sight and hearing the blood-drenched lorry, the figures of the dead, the groans and cries of the wounded. We know and we understand ... Ours is not a war of vengeance, but of liberation. The The Government ... and the Yishuv ... their attitude now is exactly what it was after the assassination of Lord Moyne. Then, as now, the hearts of our officialdom trembled with fear. Then, as now, they were afraid of the popular reaction and sought a scapegoat. It seems we are doomed to hang. Slowly faith ripens in us. We are sure that we will not be found wanting. The troops in the truck sit mute, uncomprehending. Here are men being led to trial, possibly to hear their death sentence, and look at the way they behave. Suddenly we hear a burst of song from the outside. ?We have brought a Shalom Aleichem.? There they are, our Hebrew daughters, our women comrades, stepping out of an armored police truck. They smile to each other, while continuing to sing. Their song has told us. They stood the test. They will stand it again. They are Hebrew Fighters for Freedom. We all embrace. The Trial: We are to give no aid to a court instituted by a foreign government of occupation whose authority we do not recognize. An American newspaper man spreads the Palestine Post within our view. Conversation with the prisoners is forbidden, but wishing to catch our attention, he addressed his neighbor, the newspaper woman: ?Have you read this?? He looks to see that I have not attracted the attention of the troops (in the courtroom). He starts a conversation with me, pretending all the time to be talking to the woman correspondent. I reply: ?Tell your people that our fight will continue until the occupying foreign government leaves our Motherland and the Jewish state is established.? The newspaper man writes it down. The judges enter ... and sit down. ?A? rises to his feet and declares: ?We are fighters who fell into the hands of the enemy, we are prisoners of war. A trial of prisoners of war is a mockery. We will not participate in this mock trial. We demand that this trial be declared null and void and that we be given the rights of prisoners of war.? The press, the interpreters of the court are confused (at this unexpected act). Our men rise to our feet. We sing the Song of the Unknown Soldiers. Again the court proceedings have been stopped. We conclude our hymn and sit down. One of the interpreters comes to the witness stand and begins to read the writ of accusation. Without rising, again we break into song. ?Chaim anachnu b?machteret, B?tachav afeylat martef ...? A vague smile passes over the faces of the newspapermen. They are beginning to understand what it is we are after - to disrupt the trial. The officer in charge of the court approaches the woman correspondent and tears out all her notes ... (saying) ?You will receive this after it is examined.? The American newspaperwoman turns to her neighbor: ?So this then is freedom of the press in The prosecutor enters, removes the law books from his table, and walks out. The judges enter. Colonel Pell directs the trial to continue. At once we start up some vigorous singing, drowning out his words and the reading of the writ of accusation. We have stood the test well; attained our objective. The trial will be held without us. We make our way back to the fortress of Forced to try us in absentia, they make a new law overnight. (At our sentencing inside We did not hear Colonel Pell?s recitation nor the interpreter?s translation. We walked, singing, into the yard. Eighteen Hebrew fighters in the shadow of death! The number 18, as written in Hebrew letters, chet yud, stands for life; the letters, also, are the initials of Cheirut Yisrael, Freedom of A deathly silence has fallen over our men. Faces flush, blanch. No one stirs for one solid moment. A moment that is like eternity. The heart that for a moment seemed to stop now starts up again. A loud and fast pounding. A momentary fever seizes the body, a choking at the throat. In a fleeting second, I reviewed the events of my whole life. Is this, then, how my life is to end? My twenty-one years of life. The will to live is still strong within me. In the heat of battle you are swept up and out of yourself - all thought, all feeling, all consciousness focused on the one point: to execute the plan, attain the objective, win. And now - to have to wait, wait, wait for the slow death ... the death of the little men ... the death of the hangman?s noose ... I have always wanted to die on the field of battle, giving blow for blow. And now to have to wait, helpless, impotent, for a British trooper to throw the rope around my neck! Calm yourself, compose and collect yourself! ... This, too, requires strength and courage. This, too, is to fight and do battle. This, too, is an answer to the British hangman. Spirit, courage, sanctifies every form and manner of death ... I searched the eye of my comrades who had been sentenced to the same fate. They showed not the slightest trace or shadow of regret, of fear. When our glances met, we smiled. We had closed our books, finished the accounting. We were all solvent. We were ready to die. ?If I die here in the shadow of the pit ...? Let our mourners be heartened. ?I shall break the wicked hand of oppression? - we conclude our song. When we sat down to our evening meal, the young trooper started up a conversation with ?You are from the Stern gang?? ?Yes.? ?I think they won?t hang you. They won?t dare to hang you.? ?We don?t care if they do. We are only sorry that we can?t go on with the fight. But you, what are you fighting for? We are fighting for our freedom, our very existence as a people, our Motherland. You are only fighting to save for a little while longer British imperialism. Go home, young man, for you will surely die here.? Slowly the days pass. And yet, strangely enough, we are calmer here than we were in our room. We feel free - to think, to study, to read. Notes continue to reach us from our friends in the yard. The (same) trooper is on guard. He tells us that he has heard that The Fighters have been talking about raising hell and high water if they hang us. The enemy is afraid. The Arab who cleans our cell tells one of us he had heard on the radio that our sentence was commuted. At eight o?clock an Irish policeman enters and brings us the same news ... heard over (Days later) the paper arrives ... ?The Supreme Command has decided to commute the death sentence of the eighteen men of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel to life imprisonment.? Letters from ?... and a child will be born to him Will he see it - ever? Will he know his father - will his father know him? There is pain in the heart ... Pain, but not regret. A person knows the right way, he knows the sacrifices which may be required, and he is prepared to be one of those sacrifices. There is no regret - for our way is just ...? ?... Can you understand that one who stands ?in the shadow of the gallows? - has no fear in his heart - has no regret in his consciousness. There is only pain in his heart - pain for the dear ones who have remained behind - and from who he is separated forever. And there is a second pain: in the fight for independence he will not see the victory which is to come!? ?Do you remember? Somewhere in Tiberias I taught you a song in which these words appear: ?I will miss only you and the homeland - and I will never renounce either of you. For God is a witness and only He knows, which one I love more.? Only here (in ?Yesterday we heard on the radio - about the decision of the Jewish Agency to ask to participate in the London Conference. What a lack of consistency - what a degradation! Here in ?... Civilians, who are far from consciousness and an ideal - imagine one who has been sentenced to death - that his spiritual crisis is the fear of death. But this is not so. There is no fear of death - because he has been previously prepared for this. But these days of waiting for an assured death - these command one to make a spiritual reckoning. It is not fearlessness that is required of one, but the clear knowledge that one?s way is just - ... And in these moments a person makes his spiritual reckoning ... in a completely objective manner - without thoughts or illusions ... People on the outside fool themselves; that the bullet will not get them, that they will not be arrested ... There is only the cold calculation, the secure knowledge.? ?The heart ... it exists on memories ... the belief that we are right ... (giving) the strength to persevere.? ?How can I build a house - there is no foundation? The house will collapse. How will we raise our children - and be self-satisfied, when the homeland is under foreign occupation and there is no security in and individual?s or a nation?s life?? ?Outside there was no need to talk, to talk was superfluous. The act expressed everything, the readiness, the sacrifice.? ?I would like to tell you in this letter something else about our life here - in prison. Our wounded and sick, who needed more intensive care than could be provided in the local hospital, and who were transferred to the hospital in Haifa, were lately not sent there because they were afraid that an attempt would be made to free them. It is certain that the CID decided that it would be better for people to reach the stage of death, and die within the walls of the prison instead of undergoing an attempt of escape. And so they stopped giving them medical help. A warning was delivered in writing ... that we will be ready to make terrible sacrifices to protect our comrades ... (protestations were carried out) ... today they took the wounded to the hospital.? ?There are days when you read ?the operations have been discontinued?, ?cease fire?, ?the resistance movement has warned?, etc. You are full of fear, full of anger and rage. And you must be satisfied with this. For you are powerless, because you are shackled, because you are imprisoned. And you can?t help at all.? (19 Shevat 5707) ?Today the government?s plan was announced, a plan which gives us nothing, and solves nothing. I think they will send the illegal immigrants back. And our organizations ... will surely continue the war ... against terror ...? ?There is something here (while in prison) which, according to my way of thinking is more important. And these are the conversations you conduct with others in which you argue on various subjects. And the thoughts you think deeply about on various problems. Thoughts which enable you to analyze and study for yourself many problems, which previously, or even now if you were on the outside ... you would only think about superficially.? (26 Adar 5707) ?I am beginning to fear for your welfare, worry is beginning to gnaw at my heart (over Hanna?s pregnancy). This feeling of waiting is hard. This feeling of powerlessness.? (8 Nissan 5707) ? ... A daughter was born to us ... how happy I am with this information. You have given me limitless joy ... How I want to know how you felt in your pregnancy and birth ... how did the birth go? ... I very much want to know how you feel as the mother of our daughter ...? MY DAUGHTER! ... AND WHEN YOU GROW UP AND YOUR HOMELAND POSSESSES THE SOUGHT AFTER FREEDOM, SET YOUR HEART FOR LOVE: - THE LOVE OF MAN, THE LOVE OF HOMELAND. BUT IF YOUR HOMELAND BE BOUND IN CHAINS SET YOUR HEART FOR LOVE AND HATE: - THE LOVE OF HOMELAND, THE HATE OF THE CONQUEROR. 14 NISSAN 5707 YOUR FATHER (29 Nissan 5707) ?We learned about the actual hanging only a 5:30 in the morning. We were astonished to hear of it, but it wasn?t a great surprise for us ... Near the scaffold Gruner began to sing the ?Hatikvah?, the sound of his singing woke the specially privileged Haganah men who were near the execution cell.? ??Preserving freedom, that is to hold on to the earth of the homeland - and who will hold onto it - if we don?t make sure that a new generation will be born to take our place?? It appears that she answers a question which has been troubling us - are we permitted to think about children - even if this will remove one temporarily from the battle lines? ...? ?... deliver (this letter to my mother) ... it is my duty to explain to her ... the situation we are in and th e sacrifices which are demanded of us. Because every time the leadership comes out against terrorism, my mother asks if it is worthwhile for her son to sacrifice himself for those people who oppose and persecuted him ...? THE Ever since the incarceration of twenty members of a Jewish self-defense unit who had attempted to counter the violent Arab riots in On May 4, 1947, twenty-seven Irgun fighters, dressed in British Army uniforms, attacked and breached the wall of the Acre Prison fortress with dynamite charges. Forty-one Irgun and LECHI prisoners, chosen beforehand, escaped and fled in three military vehicles waiting for them. An additional 210 Arab criminals escaped in the confusion. The first truck carrying 13 escapees, unexpectedly attacked by British fire from a group of soldiers who had been bathing on the nearby beach, overturned. They attempted to continue on foot but the shots killed five fighters including the operation?s commander, Dov Cohen, and his driver who had rushed to their comrades? aid. Those remaining were recaptured. Three were mortally wounded and later died. The remaining 27 climbed aboard the two vehicles and speeded on their way. The British pursued ... One bullet hit Chaim Applebaum. Chaim?s body was left with a shepherd from Kibbutz Dalia who was requested to bury him as a Jew. Of the attackers five were taken prisoners and three were sentenced to die by hanging. Eight British security personnel were wounded in the exchange of shots. The LECHI prisoners who successfully escaped were: David Hameiri-Begin, Avraham Bachar, Yehoshua Becker, Nissim Gershon, Yehoshua Zetler, Moshe Armoni and Yosef Frankfurt. Two other LECHI escapees, Matityahu Shmulevitz and Yosef Dar were wounded and recaptured. Prisoners killed in the escape were: Nissim Benado Michael Ashbel Chaim Apelboim Shimon Amrani Shimshon Vilner Gershon Gradovski Zalman Lifshitz Nissim Levy Dov Cohen |
