Thousands of Jews from Israel were recruited to help the British in the war, but despite the fame of the brigade fighters, the tragedy of the "excavation unit" is little known
"It all started by chance. I was a football player and we flew abroad to play. When we returned, the suitcase was lost. After a month, a letter came in German from Lufthansa. I went to Ashkenazim in the camp of Judea, they told me, 'What are you coming to us for? Did I laugh, Issachar? Yemeni understand German? I went, looked at the letter, said - "Go to Lufthansa offices, the suitcase there." "Where do you know German? Did you go to the teachers?" Leave, "he said. I pressed him, let me tell you. After a long time he broke down and told me, 'We were in captivity. The Germans'.
Holocaust and Heroic Remembrance Day: Silence siren heard throughout the country // Photo: Moshe Ben Simhon, Shmuel Buchris, Newsenders
"He told me, 'Go to Shlomo Griya, that he will tell.' I went, also did not want to tell. He said, 'Go to Shlomo and let him tell you.' And what? My neighbor? Was he also captive to the Germans? They told me? I found a broom sweeper - were you a German prisoner?
Dr. Amnon Ma'abi, historian and author, researched the history of Yemeni Jews in Israeli security services and the stories of "Mahane Yehuda" and "Shaaria" in Petah Tikva. After publishing a book about Mahane Yehuda from 1913 to 1937, a friend reminded him That now has to be told about the neighborhood heroes from '37 onwards, in the war against the Germans and in captivity. "I was very lucky, because many of the prisoners had already passed away, I had the opportunity to interview Saadia Taizi and Zachary was abolished. I focused on the donation of the Mahane Yehuda people to the excavation corps, among other troops. "
One hand in front of Hitler
In September 1939, the Jewish settlement in Israel was taken into a complex situation. On the one hand, the British have strictly implemented the "White Paper" policy, limiting the immigration and rescue of Jews, and making it difficult to purchase land and develop the Jewish community. On the other hand, the British were almost alone in the face of the Nazi aggressor.
The Jewish Agency wanted to establish Jewish units within the British army, but the British feared that it was a ruse to establish a Jewish military force to be directed against them at the end of the battle. Most of the volunteers were enlisted in the Royal Excavation Corps - digging tunnels and paving roads, hard work, but no weapons.
Dr. Ma'abi, who investigated the contribution of Yemeni Jews in the struggle for the establishment of the state, found that 12 percent of the excavators' prisoners were from Yemeni, three times the proportion of members of the congregation at that time in Israel. Yemenis also mobilized for economic reasons, due to the famine in the country, But religious motives too.
How did they train them?
"Except for order drills, they did nothing close to recruiting. Send them to Libyan combat zones with tools and weapons. Dig excavations, build bunkers, dismantle ships - all in the forefront while bombing. When they finished their mission in Libya - instead of returning to Israel, they turned around. The ship to reinforce British forces in Greece.
"It was a big mistake. From April 14 to April 29, the Germans simply crushed the British. After they broke the Thessaloniki line, the Germans sailed south toward the port of Kalamata. The British realized that the battle was lost and began to evacuate their troops on ships. The first Englishmen, Australians After them, New Zealanders, even the Indians took before they took the guys from Israel.
"There was one Yemenite named Benjamin Kak-Levy. There was a prayer shawl and tefillin, he told the British, 'I am the prophet's dove, if you do not take me with you on the ship - you will drown.' Look crazy - taken, and thus saved. In Kalamata, there are 15,000 people, of whom 1,500 Jews from Eretz Israel, 185 of them from Yemen and 30 from Camp Yehuda. Do you understand? Of the 2,400 Jewish soldiers, almost 2,000 became prisoners or killed. "
"Yes, certainly. There were Jews from Australia, England, too. Four years they were in captivity. They sat in the stalag. 8b
Don't believe the pictures from where they are dressed and eating, these were pictures for the Red Cross, pictures in command. Yemenis, who were religious, had a kosher problem. The food, and work on Saturdays and holidays, including Yom Kippur. "
What did they do there?
"They worked hard! They dug ditches and trenches for
Hitler's army , moved them from place to place, and the hardest place was Jabuzno. And when I started checking, I realized it was just Auschwitz. They heard the trains, smelled the smoke, they understood what was happening. Some of them came back mentally wounded and didn't want to talk about it.
"Beyond that, it was a great shame to them. Everyone I tried to interview - refused, or barely spoke. Israel's ethos did not want to be held captive in those years. Even the commemoration of the IDF's victims and Holocaust victims began only in the late 1950s. The fighters were sent as sheep to the slaughter, not prepared for battle, and placed on the first line without the ability to fight, like ducks in range. Everyone knows the fame brigade, but the excavator? where...".
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Among the prisoners of excavation was also Yitzhak Ben Aharon, later the leader of the workers' movement. I checked, and wherever it is mentioned that Ben Aharon was captured by the Germans, it was not mentioned that he was in the excavation corps, and this remained vague. "I have a feeling that the establishment wanted to repress the matter, and that is a fatal mistake," says Ma'abi, "people lost four years of their lives, some lost their lives and did not want to acknowledge them.
Ma'abi says that one of the excavation fighters was Menashe Dorani, who for a long time did not know whether he was a prisoner or missing. "I talked to his brother Chaim, and he said that in Thessaloniki they both fled the Germans, fled to a Greek village, joined the partisans, and continued to fight. Holocaust, like everyone in the partisans, I asked immediately and there to be recognized, and today Menashe Dorani is the only Yemeni known as a Holocaust survivor.
"Yemeni immigrants were full partners in the struggle for the establishment of the State of Israel. It was time for them to be treated as they were - obscure, fighting, captive, and most importantly - heroes."