Once upon a time in Jerusalem –
In honor of Holocaust Day and the unknown heroes who fought to free the road to Jerusalem and were forgotten from the pages of history.
In the photo, Gahal fighters, 1948.
Gahal fighters – foreign conscription to Israel, were Jewish Holocaust survivors, who survived the Second World War.
The survivors, the immigrants from Eastern Europe and North Africa, the refugee of European Jewry, most of them lost their entire families and were the last remnants of the utterly extinct family tree, they were concentrated at the end of the Second World War after the victory of the Allies over the Nazis in the displaced persons’ camps that the Allies built after the end of the bloody and horrific war.
The survivors, who lost their friends and family, and were mostly alone in the new post-war world, were concentrated in the camps.
Their home was destroyed in the war, and the community they came from was completely decimated, with nowhere to return to.
There was no place to go either, because of the British rule’s restrictions on immigrating to the Land of Israel.
This is how the immigrants found themselves hanging at bay, and imprisoned in the displaced persons camps.
The initial connection between them and the Land of Israel was with the soldiers of the Jewish Brigade, Israeli soldiers who volunteered to serve in the British Army to fight the Nazi oppressor.
At the end of the war, the brigade soldiers met with Holocaust survivors in the displaced persons camps. The meeting was very exciting.
The Israeli soldiers were amazed and shocked by the sight of the Jewish Holocaust survivors in the camps, by their physical and mental condition, and by the stories they heard from their mouths.
The soldiers stayed near the camps and began looking for a way out and helping the survivors and looked for ways to bring them to Israel in different ways, after helping as best they could with their physical rehabilitation.
No one could help with their mental rehabilitation.
The young people among us should know that in those days there was no awareness or possibility of mental help, conversations with therapists, inclusion, and emotional support.
Each survivor faced the sights of the war, the path he passed, and the memories of the family and friends who disappeared from the world alone, with themselves.
Later, the Hagana organization in Israel began to try and gather the immigrants, and together with Jewish organizations and organizations from the country, which was still under British rule, they began to consolidate the rest of the refugees who remained in the camps.
The branch of the Hagana organization abroad was appointed to the task.
First, they had to encourage the survivors, who were broken and depressed from the hell they went through during the war years.
After that, begin to restore to the survivors their lost dignity and their moral rehabilitation, and thereby also their national dignity.
Hebrew lessons began to take place, and the personal example of the Haganah messengers, and physical and disciplinary activity began to affect the survivors, giving them a new meaning to their lives.
The goal was a future aliyah to the Land of Israel and union with the people of Zion.
The youth and young people in the camps were filled with a new spirit over time, and the longing to immigrate to Israel and feel a sense of belonging and a future for their lives grew stronger.
As the diplomatic and political progress in Israel and Europe to divide the country increased,
The Haganah emissaries began to train the survivors in physical training, which was naturally limited, and training in discipline and order.
With the approval of the partition plan and the outbreak of the War of Independence, the Haganah commanders in Europe, led by Nahum Shadmi, who was sent to Europe after the end of World War II, realized that the losses of the fighters of the Jewish settlement in Israel are very heavy.
Hundreds of fighters have already been killed in the independence battles and it will be necessary to raise the survivors to thicken the ranks of the fighters and fight against the Arab armies that wanted to destroy the Jewish state that had just been established.
Ben-Gurion, who at first did not see the survivors as an option for strengthening the fighting force in Israel, realized that there was no other choice and that the survivors in the camps in Europe should also be considered as a future fighting force.
An explicit written instruction was given from the country to concentrate efforts on training the young among the survivors as help to the fighting forces, and to give utmost importance to bringing the young who can fight to the Land of Israel –
“The organization will deal exclusively with the training of immigrants who are candidates for imminent immigration to the Land of Israel… The operation of the delegation should be concentrated exclusively in those countries from which the main wave of immigration will be in the coming months. The conscription obligation applies to every person, single and married without children up to the age of 35.”
Only sons were not forced to enlist for combat service, but many of them volunteered for full or partial service.
The residents of the displaced persons camp were filled with enormous excitement upon hearing the UN decision on the partition plan. The Zionist fervor took hold of most of them.
Another, smaller part, who had already fought or seen the horrors of the war, tried and even succeeded in avoiding future conscription.
Some escaped, some evaded, finding refuge in other European countries, and later moved to distant America.
The days were still the last days of the British Mandate.
Some of the immigrants destined for combat tried to immigrate to Israel illegally, most of them were caught by the British, and imprisoned in detention camps in Cyprus, where they continued to train partially, but continued to study Hebrew and increased the internal Zionist fervor and the desire to fight for an independent state for the Jews.
Until the declaration of the state, only about 700 survivors who were integrated into the Haganah organization managed to immigrate to Israel.
After the state was established, the dissolution of the Defense Organization, and the opening of the borders to Aliya, about 20,000 survivors were integrated into the IDF, which were about a quarter (!) of the IDF forces, which then numbered about 80,000 fighters.
The initial plan, which was later changed due to severe protests, was to receive the immigrants in input camps for basic training and send them to the war and the battlefield.
This created a situation where the Holocaust survivors, who arrived in the new state that had just been established, were sent after a few days of hasty absorption to the battlefield.
Before the survivors saw the promised land they had dreamed of for years before they tried to locate their relatives or friends from the extinct towns in Europe who might have managed to escape and arrive in Israel, and before they found a place to stay.
Most of them never held a weapon, did not speak the Hebrew language, and did not know how to fight.
This is how the survivors of the inferno found themselves fighting for the lands of the country they arrived in only a few days ago, without knowing the language, without a family, friends, or relatives, and without understanding the orders that were shouted in the air, they are fighting battles for the opening of the road to Jerusalem, in Latrun, the occupation of today’s Tzuba area and the areas of the Jerusalem Corridor.
Some of them were so untrained and unskilled in weapons and fighting, that they charged the enemy forces with the weapon’s safety on.
Others showed great bravery in battle, with some already serving as soldiers in the armies of the countries of origin, or as part of the partisans.
The land of Israel is soaked in the blood of some of the brave warriors who went through hell and inferno for years, and as soon as they reached the promised land, they lost their lives on the battlefield in the battles for Jerusalem and in the defense of the borders of the newly established state.
The Gahal fighters in the picture, made the long journey from the beginning of World War II, through ghettos and extermination camps, from the most difficult human experience ever in modern times, days and continents passed until they were sent to the fields of carnage and battle of the newly formed state.
For some of the fighters, it was the closing of a circle and a sense of revenge, and the ability to fight the enemies of the Jewish people.
Upon their arrival in Israel, some of the survivors encountered a condescending attitude from the Israeli fighters, most of whom were also immigrants who had recently arrived in Israel.
Some of them also survived the new war for the home and the new state and founded a new family in the Land of Israel after the War of Independence, whose branches growing and strengthening today.
Some of them died a few days after passing half a world and a terrifying journey of agony until they set foot on the land of Israel.
This is what Alterman wrote in one of his poems –
“From the deck of a swaying ship. He went down to the harbor dock. And waiting on the dock was a motherland… his life… he accepted on the beach from its hand. But also his life, in the evening, he returned by falling in its name”
Reluctant heroes?
People who have completed their destiny, or a predetermined destiny?
A cynical exploitation of personnel as cannon fodder, or is it the urgency to save the Jewish state in its most critical moments?
According to the IDF commanders of the time, the infusion of the new fighters into the army saturated with the fallen saved the small country from losing the war for its independence.
All this happened only 75 years ago.
In my opinion, the place of Gahal fighters did not find a proper place in the history of the uprising of the people and the war for the independence of the Jewish state.
So much suffering and tribulations happened to our people until we arrived at a Jewish home and an independent and strong country of our own.
May we all be worthy to act and preserve it, also for the sake of Gahal soldiers who were killed in battle and who were not able to see it in its glory.
Shabbat Shalom to all, far and near, from Jerusalem.
Photographer unknown
