Part 1: The GI and Guns for the Haganah
An American Soldier's Story: in honor of Israel Independence Day, here is Part 1 of a 2-part story, a fictional account of a GI's adventure. For ages 9 and up.
In the Troop Camp
Barney threw the month-old newspaper onto the bench and stood up. More US soldiers had found a huge jail filled with Jews who were so thin they looked like skeletons with skin. It just turned his stomach. He had thought his years of war were bad. These men and women had suffered much more! Now the war had ended. The Nazis had been defeated. He and thousands of other American troops waited in Italy for ships to take them home. But the survivors, like Barney himself, probably had no family left. And like Barney, they had no home to return to.
Barney thought about the tiny cabin he had shared with his father; his mother had died just before his father found the WPA job. The cabin was like all the others that the WPA lent to the workers building the dam. His pop was happy to get the job, happy to get the house. During a few years of the Great Depression the family had lived under a bridge. That’s when Barney’s mother had gotten sick and died.
But in the WPA camp, Barney and his pop were the only Jews. Some of the workers didn’t want to work with his father. His father was killed in a work accident when Barney was just 18. When the accident happened, Pop was working with a Ukrainian man who hated Jews. Barney wondered if maybe the man had pushed his pop or booby-trapped the work site.
He shook his head to clear away the ugly thought. He knew the stories of how his grandparents had left Ukraine with their families when his parents were young. Their village had been burned down during an anti-Jewish riot, a pogrom. They had saved what they could and fled to America, the Goldineh Medinah, the golden country where, so the stories went, Jews lived normal lives, not afraid. And even so, a Ukrainian had probably killed Pop.
“We Jews still need our own land,” he thought. “We have prayed for thousands of years, Next year in Jerusalem. I am going to go see what Jerusalem is like and what this new country they are starting is all about.”
On a map, Italy, where the camps of returning soldiers were, didn’t seem too far from the Holy Land. “Maybe I will stay there and help build a Jewish nation.” He nodded his head. At last he had a plan.
“I’m glad I was old enough to join the army when Pop died,” he thought as he strode to his tent. Peering into the small mirror he used for shaving, he combed his hair and straightened his shirt. Butterflies flitted in his stomach. Funny: he hadn’t been this nervous when going into battle. But then, he hadn’t had any choice. Now, he was choosing to go to the administration building and talk his way out of the army.
Two hours later he stepped out of the administration building, officially a World War II veteran—a former soldier. He stood on the step and looked around the crowded camp. He took a deep breath, then another. Well, he thought, that was Step One. But what is Step Two? For the first time in his life, no one was going to tell him.
Back at his tent, Barney shoved the dop kit containing his razor, mirror, toothbrush, and comb into his duffel bag and looked around. Did I forget anything? He pulled the bedding off the bed, folded up the blanket and put it and the pillow on the bare mattress. Then he dumped the sheets in the laundry room.
He patted his worn khaki duffel bag fondly. He had carried it throughout the long years of war, walking and fighting from one side of North Africa to the other. Now, it was filled with everything he owned. He would carry it through peace until he found a home.
The guys from his squad were in their usual place, playing their endless game of poker. They said their goodbyes, told him to stay one more night so they could give him a rousing send-off in the bar. But he was determined: he was done.
Slinging the duffel over his shoulder, he headed to the city port to find a ship headed east. His plan was to go to Cyprus, then find a boat to Haifa, the port city of the Holy Land.
Traveling East
Offering to work as crew, Barney got a berth on a boat too small to be called a ship. For several weeks he traveled, boat after boat around picturesque Greek islands, always heading east. None of the boats traveled far. They stopped at little villages and different islands, selling goods and buying new ones that they would sell at the next port. After a few days they’d turn around and return home.
On the boats, Barney picked up a little of the Greek language. It wasn’t hard. He had grown up speaking two languages—Yiddish, the language of the Jews of eastern Europe spoken by his parents and grandparents, and English. He’d learned some Arabic during his years fighting in North Africa, and a little Italian in the troop camp. Now he learned enough Greek to order a drink and food at little tavernas and to rent rooms at village inns. Once or twice, in tiny little villages, he’d rent a bed in a home where he could stay the night and get a little food. A few times he slept on a beach.
Athens was a bustling city, full of ancient places whose stories had filled his text books in school. He took a day to explore the Acropolis, an ancient fortress on the highest hill around. Then he went down to the port to find a ship to take him the rest of the way.
“Come have coffee with me,” said Nikos, the clerk in the office of one of the largest shipping companies. “I’ll explain the situation.”
Seated at a tiny table outside a little taverna, Nikos explained that the British had blockaded Palestine. No shipping was permitted, and no air travel. “They don’t want the land to be overrun by all those Jews who survived the war,” he said.
Barney rubbed his chin. “So how can I get there?”
Nikos leaned forward. “Take a ship to Malta. From there, go to Alexandria, Egypt. If you can’t get there, go to Benghazi.”
Barney shuddered. Return to Libya? He had the desert of Libya memorized in his poor, aching feet. Alexandria it would be.
From Athens to Malta he traveled on a large freighter. A few days later he boarded another freighter to Alexandria. From there he traveled to Port Said, the mouth of the Suez Canal at the Mediterranean. That was a short trip, but one he didn’t like remembering. It had been very, very unpleasant, especially the run-in with pirates. But at last they got to Port Said. From there he traveled south to El Kantara, where a railroad headed northeast, into Palestine.
The Jewish Homeland: Palestine
Coming up from Egypt, the British guards at the border hadn’t paid much attention to the few travelers. He’d noticed that the just looked quickly at the ID papers of the people ahead of him, so he had shown his US Army discharge papers with his thumb over the place where it listed his religion. They’d barely glanced at the papers, then waved him through.
He was standing in the Holy Land! Barney’s breath caught in his chest and he blinked away tears. How sad that his father would never know. His father, who remembered well the fervor of synagogue services in the little town where he’d grown up, had missed practicing the Jewish religion, but he had needed to find work to support his family. He had gone west, all the way to the Central Valley of California. And now, his son, Barney, who knew only what his father had taught him about being Jewish, was in the land of his ancestors.
At Lydda he changed trains. After a few hours of waiting, he took another train to Tel Aviv. The city was a jumble of languages. All the languages he knew would be useful, but for the first time since his father’s death he spoke Yiddish, the language of his childhood. One language he could read—his father had taught him—but could not understand: Hebrew. The ancient language of the Torah was, in a slightly updated form, spoken in shops and on the streets.
Being a big, handsome, confident young man, Barney found that most men were happy to speak with him. He found that the best way to learn about Palestine and what was really happening was to go to the bars and strike up conversations. This worked with all the European men, including British soldiers. By buying them drinks, the British soldiers generally became drunk enough to answer any questions that he asked.
The most shocking thing he learned was that even though a quarter-million Jews who had survived the Nazi death camps wanted to move to Palestine, the British wouldn’t let them. Their job was to keep the peace between the Arabs and Jews. They did this by giving the Arabs everything they wanted and keeping more Jews out of the land. In fact, on the island of Cyprus there was a large camp of Displaced Persons who had tried to come illegally, and had been apprehended by the British and turned back. Worse, he learned that many Jews who had survived the Nazi death camps had drowned when the British sank the ships in which they were attempting to reach the shore of Palestine.
What did the Arabs think? He started hanging out in places where Muslim men hung out. Sometimes this was in hookah bars, where men smoked opium or tobacco and gossiped. Other times he sat at little cafes buying strangers tiny cups of strong, sweet coffee and nibbling on pastries dripping with honey. After several years in North Africa he was familiar with these places and spoke enough Arabic to get along.
Several of the men he met told him that they had recently moved their families to Palestine from Egypt or Arabian countries to the east because of the good health care, business, and educational opportunities that the Jews had brought.
Barney traveled up and down the land. He visited new kibbutzim—collective farms where everything was shared and children lived in children’s houses and just visited their parents. He visited moshavim—farming villages where the expensive equipment was shared, or where some of the property was shared. He visited villages. He went to synagogues and night clubs.
In the northern town of Nahariyah he sat at a seaside café one foggy night and watched as men rowed a lifeboat close to shore. Men, women, and even some children jumped out of the boat and splashed through the shallow water to the beach. In the café, waiters quickly set out new places and brought drinks and pastries as the newcomers were brought inside and seated. The rowboat disappeared back into the mist.
At Barney’s table, the woman who had sat across from him pulled worn but clean clothes out of her large handbag and handed them to the newcomers. The newcomers quickly stripped off their worn, dirty, wet clothes. The woman folded these and put them back into her handbag.
Suddenly the sound of an owl floated across the beach. The handbag woman’s husband leaned toward one of the new women, put his arms around her, and started kissing her while the handbag lady pushed another newcomer toward Barney and hissed, “Hold her hand and stare into her eyes.” Then she turned to one of the men, put her hand on his knee, and started talking to him.
A few moments later, British soldiers tromped through the restaurant. “We know there are illegal immigrants here. Everyone stand up!” they called. Barney stood with his arm around the new woman. The kissing couple stood with their arms entwined. Everyone in the café was dressed in ordinary, everyday clothing. Everyone was dry No one looked like they had just waded ashore after a week at sea. They looked like groups of old friends, maybe all a little drunk, out having a good time.
The soldiers looked at everyone, shook their heads, and moved away. Later, the newcomers left the café with the oldsters. They would be given a place to sleep and food. In the morning they would be taken to nearby kibbutzim and moshavim, where they would begin their new, free lives.
By the end of three months, Barney had spoken to all kinds of people and had visited the three cities of Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. He had talked to men and women in some of the political and military groups, and to many would-be soldiers. And he had learned three very important things.
The British were not friends of the Jewish people. The Holocaust survivors in Europe would not find a safe home in the Jewish land until the British were out and a Jewish government took over.
The Arabs would fight if a Jewish country was established.
There were not enough guns and other arms for the Jews to win a war.
Barney knew it was time to go home to the USA. He didn’t have any family back in California, but he knew the Central Valley, where he had grown up. He had important work to do there.
Next Week: Conclusion: Barney’s Mission in California
For Parents, Teachers, and Others
I worked for a legal newspaper in the civil courthouse in San Francisco from the time I graduated from college until I left for Israel in 1968. On my last day of work I said goodbye to the people I worked with. One, a stocky, balding Clerk of Court named Barney W., said, “Meet me at 3 pm in the cafeteria downstairs. I have to tell you a story.”
This story is a fictionalized and expanded account of Barney’s experience, but it is based on what I recall of his tale. I felt it was too long for one week, so next week I will publish the rest of Barney’s story, along with a larger section for parents, teachers and others.
Intriguing story. Looking forward to reading the rest!