• news

• News in Israel

• Events in Israel

The young fighter captured in captivity the songs of his revered commander, who fell in the battle of Gush Etzion

The partition plan left kibbutzim in Gush Etzion outside the country's borders, and in the battle for the area against the Jordanian army, hundreds were killed and captured.

One of the captured warriors was Arie and Dyslawski, who passed away this year.

A booklet found in which he treasured poems written by his revered commander tells their story

Tags

• 1948

• 1948

• Jordan

• The War of Independence

• Gush Etzion

Eli Ashkenazi

Wednesday, 30 December 2020, 08:01

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments

• A 40-year-old electric bicycle rider was killed by a car near ...

• The Israeli-American spy Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther ...

• Hundreds of followers of the "Jerusalem faction" block streets in the capital ...

• Four cyclists reported missing were located during ...

• Dozens protested in Jerusalem over the death of the boy in the police chase, ...

• Protesters against Netanyahu and government corruption were attacked ...

• A man was killed in a collision between a truck and a nearby private car ...

• Roof collapsed at a construction site at Kadouri School in the Galilee: 8 workers ...

• Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox block Road 4 in protest of arrest ...

• Protest at the national headquarters in Jerusalem, following the killing of her beloved boy ...

• Hundreds protest against the death of her beloved godfather ...

• Fatal car accident on Road 6 near Rahat: killed and 9 ...

In the video: POWs return home (Photo: State Archives)

Arieh and Dislawski from Jerusalem worked for the IEC for 44 years, and for another 20 years he volunteered for Yad Sara.

But a significant part of his life was from his time as a fighter in the War of Independence in the battles of Gush Etzion and the period when he was in Jordanian captivity.

He passed away four months ago, and he is 90.

"We grew up at home on his stories from captivity," said his widow, Tzipa.

But when she found in the bedside table a notebook of songs from the captivity period, she was surprised.

"I was not prepared for that," she said.

She searched for his will and in her dresser she found souvenirs from those difficult days she already knew: a photo album he had made in captivity from a pack of biscuits and a notebook of memories.

The songs were a complete surprise.

He never talked about the notebook or introduced it to family members.

Going over the songs reveals that the vast majority of them are the songs of Zvi Ben-Yosef, a member of an aristocratic family from Austria who immigrated to Eretz Israel alone.

He is considered a brave commander and revered by his fighters in Gush Etzion.

In an article published by the researcher of Hebrew music, Nachumi Har-Zion on Ben-Yosef, he wrote "that his warrior influenced his creative and musical personality and the creative power with which he radiated his actions in daily life and his unique warrior figure."

More on Walla!

NEWS

Synagogues filled with shadow of battles and deportation of immigrants: back to the first Yom Kippur of Israel

To the full article

More on Walla!

NEWS

• "The burden of generations has been placed on me": the boy who escaped the riots of 1905 and became the defender of the city of Safed

• The Palmach who fell in love with the land and devoted his life to a public mission

• Istanbul is open - an hour away from a natural and regular solution for female pattern baldness

"We have not yet reached many content worlds."

Arie and Dyslawski

Since he never spoke about it, we will not be able to know what led Vadislavsky, a 19-year-old boy who was caught up in the difficult captivity experience, to curate Ben-Yosef songs.

But according to Amichai Noam from the Kfar Etzion Field School, where a conference was held today (Wednesday) on the establishment of Gush Etzion settlements, "This discovery illustrated to us that we have not yet reached many content worlds that still need to be explored and discovered in the Gush Etzion story. "So much to tell the same story. When I am exposed to the inner world of the warriors, as reflected from the songbook, I am exposed to their world of values."

He added that "Arieh's story, as well as the things he wrote in captivity, allow us a glimpse into the hearts and thoughts of those thanks to whom we are here today. At the 'Rise from the Fractures' conference we will deal with rebuilding the settlements and returning settlers and defenders from Jordanian captivity. In fact, through it, a window was opened for all of us for the generation of

1958

fighters.

Vadislawski was born in Jerusalem in 1930, to parents who immigrated from Poland. When he was 17, he enlisted in the Haganah organization. His wife, Tzipa, said he bought the uniform with his own money. Etzion was placed at the "Yellow Hill" sign. The importance of the sign was that it had eye contact with all the settlements and most of the bloc's

signs

.

Among other things, Wislawski engaged in dredging operations in the area and was later transferred to a position in the Russian monastery on the mountain.

The warrior in him influenced his creative personality and the character of the warrior he was.

Ben-Yosef (Photo: Kfar Etzion School Archive)

In Gush Etzion, there were four isolated kibbutzim that the partition plan left outside the borders of the state.

After the UN decision on the partition plan, on November 29, 1947, the settlements were under existential threat. Alongside the fighters, the residents of the settlements, Palmach and Haganah fighters came to the rescue.

The last and decisive round of fighting for the bloc began on May 4 and ended with the fall of the settlements on May 14, at a heavy blood price: 242 residents of the bloc and defense personnel were killed in the fighting, many of whom were killed in the massacre in Kfar Etzion.

The Jordanians captured 320 residents and defense personnel and they were taken to the POW camp in Umm Jamal, Jordan, along with another 380 Israeli POWs from Nahariya, the Old City of Jerusalem, Kibbutz Gezer, Latrun battles and the Commissioner's Palace, as well as employees of the Dead Sea potash company.

During the battle in the Russian monastery, Ben-Yosef was killed and Dislavsky was taken prisoner.

"I was not prepared for that."

Ben - Yosef's poem in Wadislavsky's diary

There, in captivity, said the widow Tzipa and Dyslawski, it was a very difficult time.

He said that from the moment he was captured, all the way the Israeli prisoners were subjected to beatings suffered by people on the side of the road.

Arieh said that at the beginning of the captivity period the captives told them that Jerusalem and Tel Aviv had been conquered.

There was a severe sense of uncertainty and all this while living in difficult conditions.

They received little food which consisted mainly of biscuits with worms.

The prisoners were given autonomy in the management of their lives and they conducted their lives within the camp.

In June 1948 they began to receive letters from home and send letters through the Red Cross.

Wislawski, too, as an individual, found things that would help him maintain his spirit and a sane life routine.

In order to maintain regular habits, he kept order and cleanliness, and every afternoon he also made sure to wear a white shirt.

Thanks to his wisdom and love of art and painting, he created objects and painted.

Thus, for example, from the box of biscuits they received, he prepared an album for photos.

From the Consular Academy in Vienna Top Five

Among those occupations that filled his time, he wrote many poems in his notebook, most of which are Ben-Yosef's poems.

"He loved and appreciated Zvi Ben-Yosef," Tzipa said of her husband.

"When he talked about it he got excited. He said he and his friends really adored him."

Zvi Ben-Yosef was born to a wealthy family in Poland named Otto Dressler.

When he was six, the family moved to Vienna.

He received a prestigious education and graduated with honors from the University of Vienna.

He studied at the consular academy that qualified for diplomacy.

But then he chose to focus on music and traveled to Italy to study piano and composition with Autorino Raspigi, a violinist and Italian composer.

But when he finished studying again, he surprised his family and decided to leave the warm and pampering home and immigrate to Eretz Israel.

He arrived in Jerusalem and enrolled in Hebrew art and literature studies.

He changed his name to Menachem-Zvi Ben-Yosef (his father's name was Yosef).

During World War II, he moved to Kibbutz Ma'ale Hahamisha, and in 1941 volunteered to serve in the British Army and was assigned to security installations on military installations.

While guarding the airport in Ramat David, he composed his first song in Hebrew.

The song "Hora Nahalal" was composed for the twentieth holiday of the first workers' session in Eretz Israel.

From the box of biscuits they received, he prepared an album for photos.

A diary of the captivity of Arie and Dyslawski

Over the years, he wrote and composed many songs, including several songs that became well-known songs in the Hebrew community.

His song "I have a Sea of ​​Galilee" is a familiar song to this day.

The one who performed his songs was Samson Bar-Noy with his deep baritone-bass voice.

Despite his fame as a musician and though you got a job in the Music Department of Radio "Voice of Jerusalem", decided in December 1947 to volunteer infantry detachment (the field force of the Haganah) in Jerusalem. March 1948 was sent as a platoon commander of the Etzion Bloc and he was given command of the Russian convent.

Vadislavsky told his wife Because the soldiers adored Ben-Yosef. He was older than them and at the same time showed good treatment towards them. He made sure to set a personal example, so he insisted on walking upright over his soldiers in positions. "He told them that if he bent down they would stay with their heads on the ground and be afraid to fight." , citing Vadislavsky her husband. another told from the son of Joseph thought how happy the warriors and lift their spirits. the night before the battle of the monastery also ordered Lodislbski bring an accordion from the outpost kibbutz layers that says it is important to cheer and support them at the point isolates which were members of the layers.

on the night of The Jordanian soldiers attacked the monastery on May 12, 1948.

Nahumi Har-Zion in his article on Ben-Yosef describes that "at that time, Zvi was standing on the roof and firing, with a machine gun in his hand, 'like Don Quixote, like an ancient knight,' as described by Yitzhak Weiss.

When they called Zvi to be careful, he said: 'It's too late'!

On the way back from the monastery to the communication canal, Ben-Yosef was injured, and Yitzhak Weiss, who felt for him, murmured lines from his poem:

Lead an autonomous lifestyle.

A POW camp in Jordan (Photo: Reuven Milon, Zionist Archive)

Tzipa and Dyslawski say that her husband loved music and that is another reason he admired Ben-Yosef.

This is probably another reason why it was important for him to write his poems.

"Maybe he was afraid the songs would be forgotten and it was important to him to commemorate them," she said.

The notebook also contains other poems whose author's identity is unknown, perhaps it was Wislawski himself who wrote them.

Among those songs, the song "Abdullah" depicts in a humorous tone a tough Jordanian officer in the POW camp.

11 months after being taken prisoner, Wadslawski was released and returned home.

He soon began working for an electric company, which became his workplace for 44 years.

He married Tzipi Beit Rubin (her father, Moshe Rubin, was the first radio engineer of Kol Yisrael) and they had four children.

"They grew up on the stories of the battles over Gush Etzion and the captivity," Tzipa said.

"After the Six Day War we came to visit and Arieh as part of his work also connected the bloc to the Israeli electricity grid. He never forgot the friends who were killed and Memorial Day was a holy day for him and every year he went to the Bar Herzl ceremony. His friends from those days were like family for him." .

And now, having already told it all, one last souvenir from those days has now been found.

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments