My Father, His Daughter

by Yaël Dayan

  My mother tried to appeal to Ben-Gurion, and took me with her to his office in Jerusalem. I crawled happily on the floor when in his curt and decisive manner he told her off. Nothing more could be done then, and he said only, “Ruth, my dear, you have in your life only Moshe Dayan. In my life, I have all the Jews in Palestine.” She picked me up, started to cry, and walked to her parents’ house.

  Mother appealed to British officials, to Jewish Agency officials, and even decided to try to see the Queen of England. She felt at times encouraged but mostly humiliated and crushed, and when the sentence was reduced to five years, she directed her efforts toward smuggling letters, extra food, and obtaining permission for special visits. She had accepted the fact, and now my father’s life as a prisoner had to be made easier, be it by procuring an extra bar of soap or chocolate or making it possible for him to touch his daughter on her first birthday.

  My mother, to this day, believes that the benevolence, kindness, and generosity in her are shared splendidly by humanity at large. When the first official visit after the trial was set for February 12, coinciding with my birthday, she saw in it a God-sent sign and she carefully explained to the officer in charge the marvelous coincidence. The major told her to see Captain Grant, who briskly answered: “If I had to decide about bringing my own children to see me in prison, I wouldn’t want them to come at all.”

  “This is not the point, Captain Grant. You are not in prison, my husband is.”

  “It’s not educational to bring children to prison, and we’ll start having kindergarten classes here if we let everyone’s kids through the gates.” He was not going to allow it.

  My mother, as usual (it is not a weapon with her, but an automatic reaction), started crying while being propelled with the other visitors toward the gate. The prisoners were standing, waving, behind the wire, when suddenly the tall Sudanese policeman at the gate lifted me up from my mother’s arms, on his own initiative, and opened the gate and passed me over the wire to my father for a quick hug and a kiss, to everybody’s tearful delight. He then handed me back to my mother.

  My father’s next letter said: “I am not prepared to give Grant the satisfaction of seeing us hurt. I ask nothing of him, for he is a boor who gets a sadistic pleasure out of refusing an appeal, so why make one? A kiss for our baby, and may she enjoy other days in a different kind of world …” He went on to ask my mother not to bring me again, though when she didn’t, on her next visit, he was sure something terrible had happened to me.

  The prisoners, after a few long months, were moved to another prison—in Mazra, where they worked on an “agricultural station.” Their living conditions were improved, but their patience was growing thin, mostly because of what went on outside the prison walls. The “White Paper” ordinances were announced, restricting Jewish immigration and the purchase of land in Palestine. France had fallen, and preparations for the battle over the Middle East were at a peak. The first rumors of massacres of Jews by the Nazis began to circulate while my father was making a necklace from peach pits for my mother’s birthday. British authorities did accept some Palestinian Jewish volunteers, who were ultimately incorporated into the “Jewish Brigade” of the British Army. This must have seemed a paradox to the forty-three prisoners who were kept busy spreading fertilizer in a vegetable garden, reading O. Henry’s short stories, studying English and Arabic, and writing letters to their loved ones.

  Visits were easier in Mazra, but were still conducted in shouts across a wire fence. I was walking and running and on one occasion managed to cross the wire and hug my father. The camp sergeant looked at the prisoner in brown holding tight a little girl in a white dress, and shouted in a panic: “If you don’t get that kid out, I’ll shoot.” It was no game. My mother took pictures of Father in prison, and taught me to say “Aba”—Father—which of course I said to all prisoners I encountered; and my small vocabulary included the word “Acre.”

  The war was nearing our part of the world, and Mother took a first-aid course in Tel Aviv, where she moved with me for a few weeks. I was left with a caretaker each morning while Mother went to the Hadassah hospital. One morning, Italian planes bombed Tel Aviv. The few minutes of terrifying explosions caused a lot of damage, and my mother got special permission to leave and see if I was safe. She wrote to my father: “Bodies were brought into the hospital, smashed to a pulp. I realize what it is to see small children like Yaël without legs or hands or faces … Only after five hours of emergency work I’ve asked to go home for a while and found the street we lived on closed off, as there were many casualties in the area. A bomb fell between our house and the next one, the house itself had gaping holes and no windows, and I couldn’t find Yaël. Someone said my sister Reumah came for her, and I soon found them, eating yogurt on the balcony. All her clothes were torn and there was a shrapnel burn on her leg, but that was all. When she saw me she called out ‘Mother.’ I cried and told her that her father would come very soon and take both of us … How absurd it is—you in prison and us without you … Later I found out that Yaël was in bed, and Zipora was saved by being outside and lying down. She cried hysterically, ‘The child, the child,’ and people gathered to enter through the dust and smoke of the hit house and find Yaël sitting and crying, covered in cement and dust, being the only undamaged object in the room. My darling, can you grasp what a miracle befell us … All night I embraced her and could see maimed bodies and cut limbs, and with sunrise I decided to move with the child to Jerusalem, which seems safer. I walked with her to the bus station, where we met my parents, worried to death, and my mother, who never cries, had tears in her eyes when she saw the laughing child in my arms. Yaël was not feeling well, vomiting and complaining, and the doctor said it must have been the shock of the exploding bomb … I can’t leave my work now, and I feel useful. Don’t worry about us, did you worry? Or were you spared it by knowing nothing? Why can’t we be happy together about this miracle, and kiss our child together. What a crazy world it is, my child, with endless love—yours—”

  The Palestine Post of September 11, 1940, had the story: “An infant girl, whose mother was acting as a volunteer nurse at the time, was in a room whose wall collapsed, almost burying her in debris. She was found with one shoe missing and plaster in her hair, but otherwise unscathed …” I was given a new pair of shoes, the few scratches soon healed, and we were back in Nahalal for the winter, a second winter with Father away.

  Their letters, smuggled out on toilet paper or with bribes, never fell into a routine, or lost the quality of my parents’ deep longing for each other. This written dialogue of hundreds of pages conveys the love and trust and friendship of a married couple, together with the optimism, the dreams and plans of two people who have just met. I, their baby, was not what kept them together, not even the deep emotion they shared, but an additional gift, a product of their love, a proof of it.

  For the second time, the prisoners lit Hanukkah candles in December; so did we in our poor cabin in Nahalal, a sad, melancholy Feast of Lights. The battlefront was approaching us from North Africa in the south and Vichy-occupied Syria in the north. The British military command in Palestine was in need of additional fighters, and rumors spread concerning the possibility of setting free the Acre 43.

  A few days after my second birthday, my mother received a late-night phone message. It simply said to be in kibbutz Ein Hamifratz the next morning at nine, with clothes for Moshe. The prisoners were told to pack their belongings that night and be ready to leave the next morning. Both my parents spent a sleepless night, Mother cleaning and baking and pacing and crying, and Father counting the slow hours in his Mazra hut, not quite believing it was to be his last night there. On February 17, the prisoners assembled near the gate, had their palms stamped with a release symbol, and walked toward their waiting families. My father put on the black-and-white pullover Mother had knitted him, and they went home. His greatest wonderment, he said, was at how well I could talk. I would never again say “Aba�
� to strange men in prison garb. Of the three of us, I was the happiest, as I was ignorant of the fact that what brought my father home was a war that would soon take him away.

  My father drank of his freedom in large gulps. He laughed and played with me on the floor, read me stories and recited nursery rhymes, pushed my pram on Saturday to gather cyclamens, which covered the deserted Shimron Hill, and worked as a hired hand building troughs when not busy helping on his father’s farm. He ate well, and made love, and soon bracketed as a remote memory his two-year prison term. Rommel’s advance toward the Egyptian frontier and the presence of Vichy forces in Lebanon were more than reminders of Hitler’s success, and my parents both knew a new separation was inevitable.

  The Haganah established a country-wide force, trained to defend the Jewish population from possible Arab attack, and at the same time able to participate in British operations to repulse a likely German invasion. Yitzhak Sadeh was the force commander, and since he himself was an initiator and follower of the Wingate style in tactics, it was natural that his choice of field commanders included my father. When, on a May evening, the door opened and Sadeh and Zvi Spector appeared in the living room, my mother knew that the holiday was over. The three men sat and talked, and my mother put me to bed, fed the dog, and prepared tea. When Sadeh and Spector left, my father had a general idea of what his assignment was. D-Day for the planned Allied invasion of Syria was set, and my father had to form his own unit, train, equip, and brief them so they could spearhead the securing of a passage along the seacoast. Together with an Australian unit, they would cross into Lebanon, seize the highway bridges, and guard them until the Allied forces got there.

  A base was established in kibbutz Hanita, men were recruited, hand-picked mostly from moshavim and kibbutzim in the valley, and arms were procured from Haganah arsenals to add to the unsuitable ones supplied by the British command. A reliable Arab guide was recruited, and with him my father spent the last couple of nights before D-Day on patrols. This was his pleasure, walking wordlessly along mountain tracks, through rough terrain and thick vegetation, taking in the smells and sounds of the cool nights, which sharpened his senses and prepared him for the task ahead.

  The day before the invasion, I was left with Dvorah, and my parents drove together to Hanita. This was the last time I saw my father with both his eyes. A good friend, Zalman Mart, was visiting in Nahalal, and it was only natural for him to accept my father’s invitation to join them, in Naharia, Hanita, and—why not—in Lebanon, too. Naharia is a quiet resort town on the coast, north of Haifa, and the three stopped there for a relaxed hour. My mother had a sudden desire for strawberries with whipped cream—a rare luxury then—and playing big shots, they walked into the lobby of the best hotel in Naharia for a little celebration. The craving for strawberries was explained later by the fact that she was pregnant with my brother Udi, but she wasn’t aware of it then, and they proceeded to stroll along the beach hand in hand, until it was time to take the uphill, curving road to Hanita.

  Hanita was a second home, populated by many ex-Shimron friends. The dining room was crowded with Australians, Haganah officials, kibbutz members, and units about to leave for the front. Three units were packing ammunition and explosives, ready to move along three different tracks into Lebanon and Syria. My father’s unit was composed of several Australians, including three officers; five Israelis, including Mart; and the Arab guide, Rashid. Spirits were high, and shortly after nine that evening, they were ready to depart. Mother walked with them for a distance, until they reached the Lebanese border. My father talked about me and suggested, as he’d be back in a few hours, that she wait for him in Hanita. They would drive to Nahalal together in the morning, he said.

  She walked back to the dining room, for olives and tea. A short while later, the first bursts of fire could be heard, through the night. The first unit returned with dawn, and as the day broke, the rest of the groups joined, for a rich breakfast and the telling of success stories.

  My father’s unit was missing. He had crossed the mountain ridge with his men, to reach the bridges with first light. The unit split in two, each headed toward one of the bridges. Rashid, my father, and the Australian, Kyffin, found the northern bridge unguarded. They were both relieved and disappointed at seeing no action. The invasion force was due at 4 a.m., and they were supposed to wait for it. But it was nowhere in sight. They decided to look for a less exposed site for their wait, and Rashid suggested a police station a mile away, which could easily be taken from the few men guarding it. A few people were left under the bridge, and the rest followed Rashid.

  The station was manned by uniformed French soldiers, who were quick to spot the approaching platoon and opened fire. A stone fence offered some protection, but ammunition was running low and my father decided to storm the building. Together with Mart, he ran to a nearer stone cover and threw a hand grenade through the open window of the ground floor. With the second grenade and an explosion, the machine-gun fire stopped, and the rest of the unit joined them and seized the station. The soldiers inside surrendered, and while reinforcements were surrounding the building, my father took ammunition and the machine gun to the roof, which made the best observation point. The station proved to be a Vichy HQ for the area, and the prisoners talked of roadblocks and ambushes along the planned invasion route. This information was vital, and Mart was sent on a motorcycle to try to make contact with Allied forces. His tires were shot up, however, and he returned, luckily unhurt.

  The building was surrounded now, and there was little they could do but prepare to defend it and await the arrival of advance Allied units. My father returned to the roof to man the machine gun and drew heavy fire from the orchard. He took the binoculars to try to trace the source of fire, and hardly managed to focus when a rifle bullet smashed the field glasses, and his eye and hands. His loss of consciousness lasted only a brief moment. Mart came up to the roof and found my father on his back, covered with blood. He bandaged his face and hands with whatever he had. A stretcher made of blankets was used to lower him to the ground floor, where he lay in pain, bleeding, but by then fully conscious.

  The post held out, with mortar fire and with Mart at the machine gun, and they managed to seize and hold a French convoy heading south from Beirut, but there was no way they could evacuate the building. Hours later, the first Australian units which were part of the invasion force arrived, and along with two other wounded soldiers, my father was evacuated in a captured French truck. Rashid and Mart joined him, and struggling against the Allied convoys moving in the opposite direction, they managed to reach a British field hospital. The doctor said not to touch the original bandage, and procured an ambulance. Twelve hours after the bullet hit his face, my father reached the Hadassah hospital in Haifa. The surgeon, before putting my father to sleep, said: “Two things are certain. You’ve lost an eye, and you’ll live. What is not clear is the condition of your head, with the glass and metal embedded in it.”

  A couple of hours earlier, my mother had received a message in Hanita. Moshe is wounded in the hand, it said, and he is on his way to Haifa. It’s not too serious, but you should try to get there. During the long trip along the jammed road to Haifa, my mother had the sensation of not being told the truth. On arrival, she saw Shmuel and Dvorah and her own parents, who had to reassure her that my father was alive, and being operated on. Very late that night, a hot, stifling summer night, he was wheeled into a room, and my mother was allowed to go in and see him. There was not much of him to see. His head was one big bandage, except for the hole above the nose where a tube was inserted. Both his hands were covered with bandages soaked in fish oil. The smell was unbearable. He couldn’t see, he could hardly breathe, and safety pins held his nostrils open to prevent choking. He was still under the effect of anesthetics, and not being able to communicate with him deepened her sense of helplessness and anxiety.

  My mother spent the night on a bench outside the hospital. Sporadic shots could be heard,
and only with sunrise was she allowed into his room. What mattered was that he was alive. But what if his brain was damaged? Would he be able to see, was his first question when she entered his room. He was awake, and there was no doubt as to the clarity and full functioning of his brain; he didn’t know if both his eyes were damaged or how badly. Mother told him the surgeon had assured her that he would have full use of one eye, the right one. The left was lost, so was the socket and part of his nose bridge.

  I was brought in to see him, and his familiar voice, faint but humorous, reassured me. It was my father, under the bandages and the tubes. He couldn’t touch me with his hands, so I was placed near his chest and apparently was most intrigued by the safety pins in his nostrils.

  How relative priorities were in those days! Within months, prison, which had been a trauma and a long agony, seemed like a secure, well-protected shelter; the bombing of Tel Aviv, which left me shoeless, a fairy tale; and a near-fatal wound, sheer luck. He had the use of one eye. The hands were a pulpous mass but would heal. Haifa was bombed incessantly throughout a second night, but very little serious damage was inflicted and the hospital remained untouched. My father was alive. Freedom had acquired a special taste and meaning after Acre, and now life itself, breathing and sensing and being, was no longer taken for granted. This was mostly the reasoning of those around him. I doubt that he indulged in meditations over divine intervention, chances, or odds, or in an “I could have died” state of mind. He felt great gratitude to Mart, derived some satisfaction from the success of the invasion, and soon began to sink into pessimism, if not despair, assessing his chances as a one-eyed cripple.

  A rough classification of people as “dreamers” and “doers” would certainly include my mother in the first category. Yet, several times in their life together, she was the decision-maker, on intuition, with a sudden burst of self-confidence. After the air raid on Haifa, Mother decided they should move immediately to Jerusalem. The surgery over, the Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus was more pleasant; she could stay with her parents; and, most important, there was a general trust that Jerusalem, being the holy city for all religions, would never be a target for bombers.