by Ehud Diskin
“You’ve got to have hobbies when you’re alone,” Baruch continued. “I collect stamps and play chess, checkers, cards, mostly rummy. Now and then, I get together with a couple of old friends, and we play. Do you like those kinds of games?” Games had never interested me much, but I was certainly interested in sitting on Baruch’s balcony. “I play checkers,” I said.
“Great,” Baruch exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. “Don’t be upset if you lose. You should know that I’m an excellent player.”
I realized there was little chance of Perry showing up in the morning—he was far more likely to come for an evening rendezvous. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t expected to meet you,” I said. “I actually have some errands to run. Could we have a game this evening, say around six o’clock?”
“Okay,” Baruch responded, clearly disappointed.
When I returned that evening, he welcomed me warmly, and we sat down right away to play checkers. I couldn’t win a single game. Not that I cared much, but his constant gloating got on my nerves. I was starting to think it would be better to let Perry live than continue playing checkers with this elderly man.
“Baruch, how about we give the checkers a break and you teach me rummy?” I said. “I’ve always wanted to learn.”
“Gladly,” Baruch said. “But you should know that I’m going to beat you at that every time too.”
Baruch began teaching me the game, though I only half listened while keeping one eye on Sarah’s apartment. Just before nine o’clock, I saw a tall, well-built man approaching her building. A closer look revealed his unusually large ears—just the thing that Avrum and Hannah had told me to look out for.
“Who’s that man?” I asked Baruch, pointing at the figure. “He looks familiar, but I can’t place him.”
“I hope, for your sake, that you’re confusing him with someone else you know,” Baruch said. “He has a lover in that building. He visits her twice a week, always on Tuesdays and Thursdays, always at this time, and he leaves in the early hours of the morning. It’s disgusting, the immorality of that generation.”
I was tired, and rummy was as boring as I’d feared. I barely managed to finish the first game before yawning and telling Baruch that I had a long and busy day ahead of me. I promised to come see him again the following Thursday.
The best time to assassinate Perry would be when he was leaving Sarah’s apartment, when there would be fewer people on the street than in the evening. To allow myself sufficient time to prepare, I decided to carry out my mission in the early hours of the following Friday morning, but I would need to do some reconnaissance tonight. If what Baruch had said was correct, Perry would still be sleepy after waking up from a night of lovemaking.
Despite my impatience, I wanted to get a little sleep, so I got into bed as soon as I returned to my apartment. I awoke at four in the morning and walked to Amos Street, where I sat down on a low stone wall about two buildings away from Sarah’s building. I took out a pack of Matossian cigarettes and lit one. I hated the taste but needed an excuse for lingering outside.
The street remained deserted, and for the first half hour, only a single car went by; it was a British army jeep, and without warning, I found myself lost again in the past, this time in memories of my journey to Israel.
That winter in Krakow was hard, but it gave us time to begin recovering from the trauma of the war. Nelka’s eyes lost some of their fear, and the beauty began to return to her face as we fattened up on the black-market food I bought with Nikolai’s cash. Nevertheless, I would sometimes hear her sobbing at night as she mourned her husband and children and all the others who had been lost.
In late April 1945, the Russians occupied Berlin, Hitler committed suicide, and Germany surrendered unconditionally. One day, after breakfast, I was sitting alone with Nelka.
“I plan to leave this place,” I told her. “I intend to make my way to southern Italy, where I hope to find a ship to Israel. My friends have plans to leave Krakow too. What do you want to do?”
“David, you are a special person,” Nelka said. “You are tough but, at the same time, caring and kind. I have nothing keeping me here in Poland. My entire family was murdered, and I don’t like the Communist regime. I’ve never been a Zionist, but after experiencing the terrible anti-Semitism here, I think I want to go to Israel too. I want to live where I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m Jewish. If you would consider letting me accompany you, I’d be very happy.”
So Nelka sold her apartment, and I bribed our way across the border from Poland to Germany. It gave me a grim satisfaction to see the devastation left by the Allies’ air raids on the German cities. Watching the German families rummage through the rubble of their homes made me feel that justice had been done, at least in a small way. When any hint of compassion arose within me—usually when I saw children—I imagined they were the children and families of the soldiers who had persecuted and killed my family and friends; then any sympathy I might have felt ebbed away.
We made our way to Italy on trains and buses, occasionally hitching rides on American military vehicles, and then we headed south to the large port city of Napoli. On the Sabbath, I went to the synagogue in the city. The handful of Jews in attendance welcomed me warmly, and I talked with them after the service. Although they spoke very little Hebrew and none of them knew Russian, they had no trouble understanding what I sought. Several suggested I try my luck in the city of Bari, where there were several Jewish refugee camps.
Nelka and I followed their advice, and as soon as we reached Bari, we learned that there was a ship in port bound for Israel. We made our way straight to the port and met a man running around and barking orders to the people on the dock. I addressed him in Hebrew and asked if I could make the trip with them.
“Who are you?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m a Jew from Minsk, Belarus,” I said. “I was a partisan. I am a Zionist, and I want to immigrate to Israel.”
He checked to see if I spoke Yiddish and asked me a few more questions. Once he was convinced I wasn’t a British agent, he said, “The voyage has been arranged by the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, the organization that smuggles Jews into Israel. They’re getting clandestine help from Jewish soldiers in the British army, like me. You’ll have to speak to the Mossad—they decide who gets on the ship. This one carries only seventy or eighty people, and there are more than two hundred trying to get on board. But maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Thanks for your help,” I said and handed him two packs of cigarettes as appreciation. “Any advice on how I can improve my chances?”
The man looked at me and smiled. “The Mossad is made up of people from all sorts of political movements in Israel. When you talk to them, you’ll soon learn that everything is a matter of party affiliation. Go look for a man named Shmerl, and tell him you used to be a member of the Gordonia movement in Minsk. That may assure you a place on the ship.”
I did as he suggested and, sure enough, got berths for myself and Nelka, who I presented as my aunt. At three in the morning on August 27, 1945, we set sail from the port of Bari.
Originally christened Nettuno, the ship was purchased by the Mossad and renamed Natan. It was a wooden cargo ship, less than one hundred feet long, with an Italian crew. There were seventy-three Jewish refugees on board. The commander was a gentleman from the Mossad named Uri. The voyage took a week. Thanks to the soldiers who’d taken supplies from the British army’s warehouses, we had enough food, but the ship was overcrowded, and the journey was uncomfortable. We landed on the Caesarea beach, and from there, we arrived in Jerusalem.
Upon arriving in Israel, I knew that the second part of my life as a fighter was just beginning. I had a new mission, a new goal—and my decision to help reestablish the homeland of the Jewish people gave me a renewed purpose in life.
THE MEMORIES OF MY JOURNEY to Israel faded as I waited to strike at one of the new enemies of my people.
The sun was about to come up when I saw
Perry emerge from the building’s stairwell. I looked at my watch—4:55 a.m. Perfect. The time of day when every self-respecting resident of Jerusalem was sound asleep, which meant no witnesses.
Perry turned and headed toward Geula Street, in the opposite direction from where I sat. I considered following him, but as a British policeman, he had the right to stop and question me or even shoot me if I tried to flee. I had seen and learned enough.
Once Perry turned the corner, I cautiously went into Sarah’s building to have a quick look around the stairwell. Inside, I found an alcove where I could conceal myself as I waited for him to come down the stairs. There was a light fixture overhead, and I made a mental note to take out the light when I settled in to wait for him.
Exhausted from my lack of sleep and feeling somehow edgy and unsettled, I went to see Hannah. Later, as we lay in bed, she mentioned that I had made quite an impression on Brigita Shlaufer. Concerned, I asked what she had said.
“Nothing much,” Hannah replied. “Just that she enjoys her talks with you.”
After leaving Hannah’s apartment, I went to Café Pinsk and told Max I was feeling better. Max responded with a growl, but Shoshana smiled at me happily. We had another week of walking together to work, holding hands, talking about anything and everything. I treasured those moments with her; they were the closest I had felt to being at peace since before the war.
On the following Wednesday, I made one final inspection of Amos Street and spotted Perry leaving Sarah’s building at 5:05 a.m. On Thursday afternoon, I stopped by the pharmacy to buy sleeping pills, and later that evening, I went to visit Baruch.
He brought out his deck of cards and asked me whether I’d like to play in the living room or on the balcony. I pretended to think for a moment before choosing the balcony. We began to play rummy.
I saw Sergeant Perry’s tall figure enter the building across the street at exactly nine o’clock. I waited for about half an hour and then asked Baruch to make me another cup of tea. Baruch poured another for himself too and brought the tea out to the balcony.
When he went back in to get some cookies, I dropped a sleeping tablet into his cup to make sure he wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping that night. I said farewell to Baruch a little later, promising to return again the following week, if only to keep up appearances. He bid me farewell with a deep yawn.
I went back to my apartment to sleep for a few hours before being awakened by the alarm at four. I dressed, washed my face, and made my way to Amos Street. I stepped into the stairwell of Sarah’s building, hid in the alcove, and used a piece of cloth from my pocket to unscrew the scorching light bulb above me.
About half an hour later, I heard voices from the floor above, followed by the sound of a door closing and a lock turning. Perry descended at a quick pace, and when he reached the bottom and strode past me, I launched myself at him from behind, using the rear sentry takedown technique I had mastered as a partisan. Less than two minutes after emerging from Sarah’s apartment, Perry had become a mere statistic, who would no longer trouble the underground.
After dumping his body, I went back to my apartment and slept for a few hours. I woke again at noon, feeling relaxed, and soon left to meet up with Shoshana for our walk to the restaurant.
Over the following days, the British increased their military presence in Jerusalem. I was stopped and questioned several times by British soldiers who eyed me suspiciously, but all my papers were in order.
On Monday, three days after I had killed Perry, I went to see Hannah. But we didn’t head straight to bed this time. Instead, we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee. Hannah asked me if I had heard about the assassination.
“I heard something about the murder of a British policeman,” I said, “but I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Surely, you must remember him,” Hannah said, clearly surprised. “I told you my friend Sarah had a boyfriend. He was the man murdered!”
“Oh, really. How is she doing?”
“She’s upset but not for the reason you’d hope. She wants Avrum to introduce her to another policeman. Now that John’s dead, she’ll have to go back to work, and that’s the last thing she wants.”
AFTER I LEFT, I STOPPED at a barber near Hannah’s apartment for a haircut. The barber was busy, and I didn’t really want to wait, but he told me to hang around for just a little longer.
“I’ll be done with this gentleman in ten minutes,” he said. “Sit here and read the papers in the meantime.”
Resting on the table was a pile of newspapers and magazines, all at least a month old. With nothing else to do, I began browsing through the stack and came across a weekly magazine called Close and Far, a publication Holocaust survivors and refugees were using to locate relatives in Israel. It occurred to me that I should have known or imagined that something like this existed. I found a relatively recent issue and began flipping through the pages.
I felt a surge of sudden joy when I spotted a small advertisement that read: Alec Rozonovsky from Minsk is looking for David Gabinsky from Minsk. If anyone knows of his whereabouts, please contact the Jewish Agency’s Bureau for Missing Relatives in Jerusalem on King George Street, Room No. 5.
I tore out the page, sprinted out of the barber shop, and hurried to the Jewish Agency building. The line outside Room 5 was long, and I waited impatiently for my turn. There were only two clerks in the room. Finally, I was able to approach one and introduce myself.
“Wait just a minute,” she said and began looking through the files that were in the cabinet next to her. It took her about a minute to find the right one, and she jotted down Alec’s address on a piece of paper. I was surprised to discover that Alec was living on Ezra Street in the Bukharan Quarter, just a few minutes’ walk from my apartment. I hurried to the address on Ezra Street and knocked on Alec’s door, but no one answered.
I left a note on the door: Welcome to Israel! I saw your ad. You can find me at Café Pinsk on HaHistadrut Street. I work there as a waiter most days of the week, from 1 p.m. until 11 p.m. David G.
Alec showed up at the restaurant that same evening, and we greeted one another with quiet exuberance. I had feared I would never see my friend again. We embraced one another, and then I introduced him to Shoshana.
“I’ll pay for my friend’s dinner,” I told Max.
“Your friend can eat on the house,” Max responded sternly, “but perhaps you should get to work instead of standing around chatting.”
I winked at Alec. “You heard the boss. I’ll be done in an hour. Sit here and enjoy your dinner.”
After my shift was over, Alec joined me and Shoshana on our walk home. We told him bits and pieces of our lives since coming to Jerusalem, and I asked him what he’d been doing since we’d parted.
“Our raid on Nikolai drove me to hunt down others like him,” Alec said. “I figured I’d be able to take revenge on those who plundered our people and also secure my financial future. I was joined by four former partisans, all of them Jews. We robbed and killed Nazi collaborators, and I even found a Jewish man who helped us transfer our spoils to a Swiss bank. You could say I’m a wealthy man. But as you know, I’ve never been interested in money for its own sake. So a couple months ago, I decided to come here. And although I don’t need to work, I found a job at the Berman Bakery in Mea She’arim. I work the night shift there four days a week.”
When we got to the corner of Ezekiel and Zephaniah streets, Shoshana and I said goodnight to Alec. “I’ll come to visit you on Saturday morning,” I said, “sometime around nine.”
Shoshana didn’t say anything as I walked her home, but I felt the need to explain my relationship with Alec. “Alec and I were brothers-in-arms and very close friends during the war. We were willing to do anything for one another.”
She nodded. “I understand. War seems to create a bond of brotherhood between men.”
When we reached her building, we hugged. “I don’t want to say goodnight yet,” she said. “I feel li
ke I want to be with you. Take me home with you.”
I silently took her hand in mine, and we walked to my apartment.
“Let’s continue the hug we broke off,” Shoshana said as we went inside and took off our coats. She wrapped her arms around me, bringing her lips to mine. I felt overcome with desire, but again I heard Brigita Shlaufer cautioning me to let Shoshana make the first move.
Shoshana pulled me down on the low settee in the small living area. She removed her sweater, helped me out of my own shirt, and then took off her bra. She wrapped her arms around me, and when she pressed her bare chest against mine, I was in ecstasy. I held her tightly, and after a few minutes of passionate kissing, she looked up at me lovingly.
“I love you, David, and I feel safe with you. I hope this has shown you, a little, how much I want to give myself to you.”
She began to dress, and I realized this was the furthest we would go that night. She kissed me again and left the apartment. Although I felt frustrated, as any man would, I was nevertheless encouraged by the progress in our relationship. Brigita’s sessions were truly helping her find a way past her trauma.
OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, I took some time off from my after-hours activities, but I still thought occasionally about new targets. The Irgun and Lehi were pressing ahead with their attacks on the British. On February 25, as part of a coordinated operation with the Haganah and Irgun, a group of Lehi fighters infiltrated a British airfield near the village of Kfar Sirkin and blew up eight aircraft. That same day, the Irgun launched an assault on Lod Airport, blowing up another eleven British planes.
These attacks made me feel proud of my Jewish counterparts, and I resolved to continue playing my part. I would track down and eliminate policemen and British soldiers who were ruthless, cruel, and trying to prevent the creation of a Jewish state.
On Saturday, I went to visit Alec. He was waiting for me with a bottle of vodka instead of the tea and cookies typically offered at the other homes I visited in Jerusalem. We filled our glasses and raised a toast to life.