Lone Wolf in Jerusalem

by Ehud Diskin

  I returned with Shoshana the following day for breakfast at Hannah and Avrum’s. While there, it occurred to me that I was spending too much time with this couple—with one of them especially. Remembering Shoshana was working hard to get over her emotional problems regarding physical intimacy, combined with Hannah’s sudden possessiveness the day before, was making me rethink the situation. I decided to limit my visits with Hannah to once a week and the breakfasts to once a month. Rather than say anything, I’d simply gradually extend the time between each meeting.

  Avrum once again dragged me off to his office the moment we entered the apartment. “Did you arrange to meet again with Yaakov Dover?” he asked.

  “Yes, this Saturday,” I replied. “Tell me, did the operation to arrest members of the Haganah and Irgun go ahead last night as planned?”

  “Yes, but the results were poor. The British had a list of people they wanted to arrest, but almost none of them were home. They think someone on the inside may have tipped off the underground, but so far as I know, they don’t have a suspect in mind,” Avrum said with a wink. “I assume it’ll be easier for you to work toward improving ties between the Haganah and the British now.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  As we were standing by the front door after the meal, Avrum said that he looked forward to seeing us next week.

  “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it,” I replied. “I’m up to my neck with things to do. But I can come the week after.” Avrum looked disappointed but said nothing.

  When I arrived at Café Pinsk that afternoon, Max greeted me warmly, perhaps for the first time since I’d started working for him, and dragged me into the kitchen. The poor chef, again, was sent to the store.

  “Thanks to the information you gave us, several of our friends in the resistance escaped arrest,” he said. “You have my gratitude, and a senior member of our organization wants to thank you personally. He’ll come to the restaurant after closing time, and I hope you agree to wait for him.”

  I asked Shoshana if she would be okay walking home alone, and she just laughed. “Before I met you, I walked home alone every night. I’m sure I can manage.” She seemed pleased by Max’s change in attitude toward me, even if it came at the expense of my company.

  Our guest showed up around midnight. He was a broad-shouldered man of average height, dressed all in khaki. He had brown eyes and brown hair, graying at the temples, and a warm expression on his face. As he shook my hand, however, he fixed me with a piercing stare, as if he were trying to size me up.

  “This is David,” Max said, “the young man who warned me about the raid.”

  The man said a few words of thanks for the information I had provided. Max, uncharacter​istically, didn’t utter a word but simply nodded as the man spoke. It seemed clear he was someone important, and Max was like a shy kid around him.

  “I hear you were a partisan in Belarus,” the man said. “Please tell me more about it.”

  I offered him a brief history of my life and the operations my group and I had carried out against the Germans.

  “I’d be very happy to have you join us,” he said when I finished my story. “You seem to be an intelligent young man, in good physical shape, brave and experienced. I understand that you sympathize with our struggle against the British, and you could be of much help to us.”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see the anticipation on Max’s face. I hated to disappoint him again, but I still preferred to work alone.

  “I appreciate the offer, and I’m flattered, but I can’t accept at this time. I just arrived here a few months ago, exhausted from the war, from all the horrors I’d experienced, from the loss of my entire family. I still need time to rest and recover.”

  Max’s face turned as red as a tomato, but the man just smiled and extended his hand. “I hope you have a change of heart.” He nodded to Max and stepped out into the street.

  “I thought meeting such a man would change your mind, but you’re hopeless,” Max said.

  I ignored his comment, said goodbye, and left. It was already past midnight by the time I made my way up Chancellor Street, where I spotted a young man and woman posting flyers on a wall. I was about thirty feet away from them when two British policemen emerged from the darkness and began brutally beating them with their clubs. This time Shoshana wasn’t by my side to stop me.

  As I approached the scene of the beating, wobbling a little with feigned drunkenness, one of the policemen turned to me and hissed in English, “Get out of here,” adding a curse and raising his club to indicate the direction I should follow.

  “Prosti,” I said, and as I stumbled past, I whirled and kicked him in the groin. He doubled over with a vomitous gurgle. I grabbed his club and slammed it against his head; he fell to the ground unconscious.

  The second policeman stumbled to his feet with panic in his eyes. He swung first, and I blocked his club with mine. As we strained against each other, I kicked him in the groin as well. He doubled over just like his friend, and I swung at the back of his head, sending him to the ground.

  I ran over to the young man and woman who had been attacked. They were both wobbly but able to stand.

  “Go!” I yelled, interrupting their frantic words of thanks. “A military vehicle could be here any minute.”

  The policemen lay motionless on the ground. I didn’t bother to check whether they were alive or dead. I wiped the fingerprints from the club I had used and tossed it over the wall by the sidewalk, crossed the road, and continued on my way up Chancellor Street at a regular pace. No military vehicles yet. I made my way home, taking the side streets when I could.

  When I reached my apartment, I felt satisfied with my actions. I knew that one such incident wouldn’t be enough to deter the British from their violent assaults on people posting leaflets, but I hoped that they would think twice about it from now on.

  I showered and got into bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought about Shoshana and everything she had told me. Those thoughts carried me back to Leah, who was gone from my life but not from my heart.

  I loved Shoshana, but our relationship had yet to reach—if it ever would—the same level of openness and warmth that Leah and I had shared. Our constant fight for survival during the war had united the two of us in a way that was physical, emotional, and spiritual. We had been willing to sacrifice ourselves for one another without the slightest hesitation.

  In those intense days, when we were fighting against the Germans, Leah and I had both longed for those moments when we could get away from the group, find a private spot, lie down on a blanket, and make love. How would I ever find that kind of passion, that intensity, again? The crucible of war was a terrible thing in every way, but it had forged a love that bonded me to Leah for eternity.

  After she was killed, I struggled to regain my focus on our mission. I blamed myself for her death, for irresponsibly falling asleep in the forest. Why had she died, while I survived? The thought continued to haunt me.

  Misha, who had loved and admired me, became cold and distant after Leah’s death. He didn’t say it, but I knew he blamed me. I couldn’t console myself with the empty words that people always say—that she’d had a good life or that at least her death had come quickly, and she hadn’t suffered.

  I no longer cared whether or not the Germans killed me, because everyone who mattered to me was gone. I had no one left to love. Only my sense of responsibility to my fellow partisans and the families we had taken under our wing gave me the strength to go on. I had to look after them, and I was determined to do so.

  More refugees from the ghetto joined us in the second half of 1943, and they filled us in on events from the front lines. The Germans were in retreat. In early 1943, the Russians scored a significant victory, both from a military perspective and for morale, when the battle for Stalingrad ended with the German forces’ surrender. In July, British and US forces landed in Sicily and kicked off the Allies’
campaign in Italy, and there were rumors that the Americans and British would soon land forces in France and launch an assault on Germany itself.

  We expected the Germans, concerned now with their own survival, to focus on their battles against the Allied forces rather than their murderous vendetta against Jews. We were very wrong. The Germans’ hatred for Jews was so intense that they actually stepped up their extermination efforts. Their desire to “purify” Europe of Jews seemed even stronger than their desire to win the war.

  As for the Minsk ghetto, the refugees told us it was no more. It had come under the command of Adolf Ruebe, who had murdered the last five thousand Jews of the original hundred thousand once crowded into its confines. Although almost all of these last survivors had worked in factories that produced supplies for the German war effort, Ruebe had three thousand of them killed in August and September. On October 21, 1943, German soldiers rounded up the last of Minsk’s Jews and marched them to the train station for transportation to the death camps in Poland.

  After hearing of these atrocities, we desperately wanted revenge. We carried out sabotage operations against the Germans’ telephone and power lines, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy us. It became our sacred duty to kill as many Germans as possible.

  Following their defeat at Stalingrad and the advancement of Russian forces, the Germans retreated to the west, where they suffered heavy losses. We received reports that the Russians had reclaimed Ukraine. The Germans were no longer self-assured. They moved only in large groups, fearing surprise attacks by partisans.

  The villagers in the area where we fought were well aware of the situation by now and began showing us more respect. The Russian partisans adopted a more sympathetic attitude toward the fleeing Jews, and large areas fell under partisan control.

  Our group now numbered sixty-eight people, including thirty-four fighters. We needed to carry out a major assault as soon as possible in order to play a real part in defeating the Germans. Alec, who had proved himself to be an excellent lookout and scout, left on a reconnaissance mission for a few days and returned with information.

  He had found a small supply base adjacent to a factory where the Germans were using Belarusians as forced labor. About three dozen German soldiers manned the base, along with a handful of administration personnel who oversaw the laborers. A small observation tower stood over the camp, always manned by one soldier, with another stationed at the gate.

  A nighttime assault would be too risky, Alec believed, because security at night was tighter, and the guards were more alert. During the day, the Germans seemed less concerned about an attack. The best time to launch an assault was in the evening at sunset.

  In light of his report, I decided we needed to surprise the Germans and kill as many of them as we could before they had time to respond. After much thought, I came up with a plan: We would disguise ourselves as German soldiers escorting a group of new laborers to the base. We’d hide grenades and other weapons under the ragged clothing, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

  Alec, dressed in the uniform of a German officer, led the way. When we reached the gate, the guard snapped to attention and saluted Alec, who crisply snapped a flat hand to his helmet in return. “I’ve brought some more scum to work,” he said in perfect German.

  The German at the gate scowled. “No one informed me of this. And some of these look like Jews. We’ve been ordered to kill Jews, not work them. Have you not heard this?”

  Alec shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, you can kill them all right now. But my orders are to bring them here.” He pulled a bottle of schnapps from his pocket. “For your morale. Have a sip, and take the bottle to your commander.”

  Alec approached him with the bottle, and when the guard reached out to take it, Alec smashed the bottle over his head and plunged the broken end into his throat. Quickly, we entered the base.

  Alec ran into the commander’s building and shot and killed him while the rest of us stormed the soldiers’ living quarters, gunning them down with our MP40s. We took them all out before a single German had a chance to fire his weapon.

  “What’s going on down there?” the guard in the observation tower called out. “Report!”

  Alec approached the tower and waved at the man. “Some of the pigs who work here were making trouble—they didn’t like the food!” he shouted. “Do you feel like coming down and helping me drag out their carcasses?”

  “Certainly,” the guard called back. He made his way down from the tower, frowned at Alec, and said, “I don’t recognize you. Are you new here?”

  “Let’s get acquainted,” Alec said and fired point-blank into the man’s stomach. The guard stumbled backward, hit the wall, and slid to the floor. “I’m the Jew who is sending you to Hell.”

  We heard shots coming from the administration building, and seconds later, one of my men rushed up to tell me that everyone inside had been eliminated. We headed to the laborers’ quarters, filled with Belarusians.

  “You are free, my friends!” Alec shouted. “Tell them, David!” I explained how they could join up with other groups of partisans, and then we gave them food and supplies for their journey. They thanked us tearfully before streaming out the gate and into the forest.

  The base provided fine spoils for us as well. We loaded food, clothing, blankets, and tools onto three carts and filled several knapsacks with supplies. After removing what we wanted, we torched the base. As we headed down the road, from time to time we turned around to watch the fire consuming the base and the bodies of the Germans.

  I OPENED MY EYES. SUNLIGHT poured in through my window, and I realized I had fallen asleep in my clothes, once more trapped by my memories through the night. It was Saturday and almost time for my meeting with the Haganah members at the Glickstein family’s home.

  I showered quickly and changed my clothing before heading out. I went without much enthusiasm, but I had to fulfill my promise to attend. The meeting, like the previous one, was friendly and pleasant. There were many members in attendance, and they were all cordial and friendly to me. Yaakov immediately kicked things off by expressing his heartfelt gratitude for the information I had shared about the British manhunt, noting that several of the Haganah had avoided arrest thanks to me.

  “So tell me again why you do not want to join the Haganah?” he asked. The gazes of some of the men sharpened as they waited for my answer.

  I repeated my explanation of my weariness after the war, my need to recuperate. “Besides,” I added, “my long hours at the restaurant would prevent me from attending the meetings more than once a month, and I want to spend some of my free time with my girlfriend too.”

  “Bring her along,” someone said.

  “Not a chance.” I shook my head. “My girlfriend’s views are more extreme than yours. From an ideological perspective, I’m somewhere in between. I greatly admire your activities, but I believe that the Haganah should do more to drive out the British. We should look for ways to cooperate with the other underground organizations. We’re all Jews, right? And we’re all working toward the same goal of unrestricted Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish national home in Israel.”

  The room fell silent for a few seconds, and then an elderly man with glasses stood up and introduced himself as Moshe Fingerhof. “Maybe because you’re new to this land,” he said, “you don’t know the other underground groups like we do. The Lehi and Irgun murder the British indiscriminately and without any moral compunction. There’s no difference between them and the Arabs who have killed hundreds of Jews. The only way to deal with the British and the Arabs is through diplomacy, not physical violence.”

  I clenched my hands into fists and fought to contain the sudden anger that swept over me. “Sir,” I began, carefully measuring my every word, “your opinions must stem from the fact that you were here in Israel during this awful war. You didn’t witness even an iota of the horrors I experienced. You didn’t see thousands of Jews led into the for
est, forced to strip naked, and executed. You didn’t see your loved ones murdered before your eyes until you were left alone in this world. If you had, you would understand how unforgivable it is that the British are breaking all their promises to the Zionist movement. They are preventing the refugees who survived the horrors of this war from immigrating to Israel.”

  My voice had grown hoarse from intensity, but I went on, growing more fervent.

  “Comparing the Lehi and Irgun fighters to Arab rioters and murderers is absurd. I may be new to this land, but I know that the Arabs don’t want any Jews in Israel—”

  “Sir—” the old man tried to interrupt.

  “And they have attacked us indiscriminately with the purpose of wiping us out! Had the Germans won the war and occupied the Land of Israel, they would have killed you and everyone you know. Don’t forget, sir, while the Arab murderers have killed and have plotted to kill innocent Jewish civilians, the activities of the Irgun and Lehi have been directed only against British soldiers, policemen, and government officials responsible for implementing the policies of the British government and the so-called White Paper, which didn’t allow Jews to flee to Israel even while the Nazis slaughtered us.”

  I found I was really getting irritated and took a moment to collect myself before speaking again. When I did, my voice was calm again. “I’m not saying that we should join the Irgun or Lehi, but if there are those who are willing to sacrifice themselves, we should support them. Pacifism may be a nice idea, but it’s impractical and dangerous in real life. The Jewish community in this country didn’t suffer during the war, but they must take action on behalf of their people who did.”

  I stopped talking, and a heavy silence fell over the room. I could tell that my blunt words had dampened the mood, but I did not regret saying them.