New Heavens (11 page)

I have no doubt that we Jewish pilots would have succeeded for we had sufficient fuel to reach Poland, and our bombing was accurate enough. Had the intelligence services of the Allies told us about the monstrous death factories, we could have substantially reduced the scale of the tragedy.

Having been brought up in a civilized society without once having encountered organized cruelty or even overt anti-Semitism, I was traumatized by what I saw and heard.
My naive trust in the innate goodness of humanity evaporated, and the world changed for me. Even more alarming, my belief in God was deeply shaken. If God is all-powerful, how could he have allowed the slaughter of more than a million and a half Jewish children?

The horrors of the Holocaust were a turning point for me. From that time on, the course of my life changed completely and the Holocaust became the leitmotif of my life. Instead of being a run-of the-mill student who would have completed his studies and returned to his hometown and to the business and the protection of his family, I chose a completely different course. I had known in a general way that the Nazis were persecuting my people, and I had believed that there was some maltreatment. I never imagined the scope of the horror, however, that went on night and day for four years in an attempt to rid the world of anyone with Jewish blood. I was driven by an intense desire to exact revenge. It did not take me long to realize that there was no way for me to do so, years after the abominations, and that I must instead find some means for positive action on behalf of the Jews.

My studies in the second year at university became trivial, irrelevant. I contacted the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) and applied to go to the Continent to assist the so ineptly labeled “Displaced Persons,” who were the pitifully few survivors of the death camps. Despite my efforts, I couldn't find any meaningful way in which to participate in their work.

In a state of utmost desperation, I sought a way to react to the terrible happenings. It quickly became clear that the
only course left was Zionism, to establish an independent state, a haven and homeland for the survivors of the camps and the last refuge in this world from animosity for Jews anywhere. The realization of the 2,000-year-old dream of the return to our own country could be the only fitting epitaph for our slaughtered people. I prepared myself for the struggle to create an independent Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In the mood of despair in which I found myself in 1946, I approached in London an old friend of the family from Johannesburg, Samuel Katz. He was a slim, bespectacled man who bore a strong resemblance to his mentor in the Revisionist movement of Zionism, Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He was an intellectual and an authority on Jewish history and customs, particularly the history of political Zionism.

Though creating the impression of a quiet, studious intellectual, he had always been a firebrand Zionist member of the Revisionist party. When the time came for overt action, he became an active member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), the military arm of the party. He detested what he called the liberal attitude of the mainstream parties in Palestine such as the Mapai Labour Movement. He disliked Chaim Weizmann, referring to his approach as “another cow and another dunam” policy, meaning the gradual, peaceful, and orderly progress toward setting up an independent state. In view of what happened to the Jewish communities in the Holocaust, few would dispute the Irgun's urgent activist policy of fighting with all means to ensure the immediate establishment of an independent state that would open its borders to Jews everywhere.

Far away in sunny and peaceful South Africa, in more or less complete ignorance of what was happening to our brethren under the Nazis, my family and I had considered the Revisionists to be a committed but violent group, and I did not find enough common ground to support them.

At the time, the British and society in general considered the Irgun Zvai Leumi as a dangerous terrorist organization. Despite my inner conflict and knowing that by joining the Irgun in an active role I would be crossing the line from the background in which I had been raised, I made a firm decision to espouse unreservedly by any means, however violent, the aim of founding an independent state that would shelter the remnants of the Jewish population of Europe. Though I realized this step might cost me dearly during the bitter struggle ahead, this about-face in my life was essential for my own peace of mind.

With great secrecy, Katz introduced me to one of the Irgun activists in London. Having all my life been an Anglophile, educated for five years at a very British public school in Natal and having served as an officer in an RAF fighter squadron, I was torn between my allegiance to Britain and the Commonwealth. I took sides in what would clearly be a bitter struggle against Britain to achieve our goal. I joined the Irgun in England as an active member of the organization, knowing full well that this move would place me in direct conflict with the British government and possibly also the country of my birth. South Africa was at that time still a part of the British Commonwealth.

Shortly after joining the Irgun, I was sent to Paris for training in underground tactics. My first meeting in Paris
with the commanders of the Irgun was at the Lutetia Hotel on Boulevard Raspail, headquarters of the Irgun in Europe. Katz's familiarity with the members whom I met reassured me somewhat after the tales that appeared daily in the British press about the bloodthirsty terrorists who comprised the Irgun fighters. Shortly after arriving in Paris, I was given a nom de guerre to be used in our Irgun activities. I became “Samuel Bennet.”

“Benjamin” was the code name of the commander of Irgun Europe, and I discovered his real identity only many years later, Eliahu Lankin. He was unassuming, of medium height, and his spectacles gave him a studious air. He was soft-spoken, cultured, and gentle, the last person one would suspect of being a terrorist. Only the fact that in the middle of the European winter he was deeply sunburned gave a clue to his having escaped shortly before from Eritrea, where he had been deported by the British Mandate authorities in Palestine. The British often deported Palestinian Jews they suspected of being Irgun terrorists.

Benjamin had escaped from Eritrea and spent days under the false floor of a bus traveling across Africa to Europe. In both Hebrew and English, he had a strong Russian accent. Years before he had escaped from Russian pogroms to Manchuria with his parents. Having been at school in Harbin, Manchuria, he spoke passably good Chinese and was for me a source of curiosity and pride in Chinese restaurants in Paris.

He was assisted by a group of Jews from Palestine and eastern Europe. A few of them bore the blue numbers the Nazis had tattooed on the arms of all Jews who had been
incarcerated in the death camps. They all had only one overwhelming aim: the creation of a Jewish homeland. Some of my Irgun compatriots were the only survivors of families murdered in the Holocaust and bore their own guilt for not having done anything to help.

There were also a few Americans. One of the women was Ziporah, who acted as secretary and organized train and plane tickets. All of us were motivated by the principle of getting rid of the British rulers of our future homeland as soon as possible. The only occasion on which I had a feeling of distaste was when one, an American called Rifkind, spoke of his admiration for the Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht's public declaration that “he had a holiday in his heart” every time he heard that a British soldier was killed in Palestine.

The French government conformed to its traditional attitude toward political refugees and its displeasure at the ousting of French influence by the British in the Middle East. The French were not only tolerant of the Irgun contingent but, when pressured by the British government to undertake action against the Irgun members in Paris, gave timely warnings to allow the hurried evacuation of a hotel and a move to another location.

In Palestine considerable friction existed among the three underground groups. Sometimes the enmity boiled over into bitter struggles between the mainstream Haganah, the military arm of the more moderate labor-led factions, and the more extreme Irgun and Stern organizations. Among those of our group who had not been through the hell of the Nazi death camps were some Jewish Palestinians, who
had from their earliest youth been members of the ultra-nationalist Revisionists and had been in conflict with the Haganah. One of the Jewish Palestinians in Paris with the Irgun was Eli Tavin, who maintained that he had been captured and tied to a bed for ten days by the Haganah after taking part in the Irgun bombing of the British embassy in Rome.

We were taught how to make primitive bombs and time-delay fuses using a small acid container, which, after breaking, let the acid gradually penetrate a piece of camera film, detonating the explosive. One target was the commander of the British forces in Palestine, Gen. Evelyn Barker. He had brutally turned back the immigrant ships carrying concentration camp survivors seeking refuge and had confirmed death warrants to execute a number of Irgun fighters. The Irgun had also warned him that floggings, which were carried out by the British, and death sentences would incur like treatment for the occupying British administration. In addition, Barker had published an official order of the day to his troops in Palestine, “putting all Jewish businesses and private houses out of bounds … to punish the Jews in the manner which this race dislikes most by hitting them in their pockets.” This statement in particular helped to make him a target of the Irgun.

The British Irgun members could act only in a supporting role, for none had any experience in handling delayed-action bombs. Discussions were held in Paris about how to get an experienced member from the Palestine Irgun into England for this purpose. We knew the British authorities
were keeping a close watch on all ports and airfields, aware of the Irgun intention to bring men into the United Kingdom to retaliate for what was being done by British troops and the Palestine police. It seemed an impossible mission to get anyone into the country; as a last resort, I volunteered to smuggle someone in by air. My suggestion was accepted and I returned to London.

Back in London I contacted my friend Ezer and told him of having joined the Irgun, and I explained my intention to start operations by smuggling someone into England. He, too, was frustrated by his inability to do anything. I requested his help and he readily agreed to join the Irgun. I moved from Kensington to digs in his building so that we could prepare for the mission from there. Because of his Palestinian passport, I knew it would be unwise for him to play anything more than a low-profile role. His job would be to take the bomb expert away from the landing area if I succeeded in getting him into England. Ezer's decision to join the Irgun eventually led to his making an outstanding political career with the Likud party, which had its antecedents in the Irgun. When the Likud came to power, Ezer became the Defense Minister. In 1993 he became president of Israel as, of course, was his uncle Chaim Weizmann before him.

I had misgivings about what we intended to accomplish in England. It is hard to project oneself back so long ago in time to examine the morality of one's intentions and actions. For us it was war with no holds barred. I was a Jew first, and as such, for me, the end justified the means.

Irgun headquarters in Paris found a most suitable person to organize the British operation, a young man from Palestine named Yoel, who had served in the British army during the war and spoke passable English with a Welsh accent, which he acquired when serving in a Welsh regiment during World War II. He was a quiet young man, totally devoted to the Irgun and its cause. With his pale complexion, I was sure he would pass for an Englishman if questioned by the police.

In preparation for the coming operation, I bought from the Auster company a new three-seat aircraft with a high wing and a 100-horsepower engine. British registration was G-AIZV, and it appeared to be my private aircraft. It was noisy in the cabin and underpowered, but I felt it would do the job. To become familiar with its flying characteristics and, at the same time, to possibly throw Scotland Yard off the scent, I made two innocent flights to Paris and one to Barcelona.

After a search from the ground and from the air, I chose a small field, part of a farm near Canterbury. The field was in an isolated farming area, and small, but with the advantage of being ringed with trees, although they were high enough to present a danger during takeoff and landing. A significant plus was that the field was under the flight path for light aircraft flying between Paris and London.

After practicing short landings and takeoffs in the Auster, I flew to Paris. I chose a grass airfield near the city as the pick-up point for my unofficial passenger. Ezer was in England
before I went to Paris, and I arranged that he hire a car and take with him a female sympathizer named Deborah. They were to cruise slowly around the landing field in England at the appointed time as though they were a young couple looking for a quiet spot. If I succeeded in my mission to fly Yoel into England, Ezer was to pick him up and drive him to our digs in London while I took off immediately for my official destination at Croydon.

On the day of the mission, the weather was bright and promising, and from the window of my room in the little Hotel Royal on Boulevard Raspail, I scanned the sky for clouds. The feeling of exhilaration for the mission I had to accomplish was tempered with some foreboding. Having served as an officer in His Majesty's Royal Air Force only a short two years before, I imagined my fate if I were caught smuggling an Irgun terrorist into England.

After a French breakfast of hot croissants and bitter coffee, I paid my bill. I spent some minutes examining the parked cars and passing traffic. When I was satisfied that there seemed to be no representatives of British Intelligence in the area, I bought a
Daily Mail
printed in Paris. I smiled at the headline: I
RGUN
T
ERRORISTS
T
RYING TO
E
NTER
E
NGLAND
A
LL
P
ORTS AND
A
IRFIELDS
G
UARDED
. I took a taxi to the light-aircraft field at Toussus le Noble and kept the copy of the
Daily Mail
to carry in the aircraft with me.