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Tel Aviv, Sunday, August 16, 1942
My Dearest Samuel,
Panic is here. It throbs in wispy tendrils just below the surface, like blood dripped into water, like a riptide waiting to carry away an unsuspecting swimmer. What was once spoken in whispers is now heard in full-throated terror: the Germans are coming, the British are leaving, and even before the Nazis get to us, the Arabs will have their own day.
In Jerusalem, well-meaning Arab families are offering to adopt Jewish children, to protect them when the rioting and slaughter begin. The Irgun, it is said, is making covert plans to take over the Old City of Jerusalem, evict its Arab residents, and make a last Jewish stand within its walls against the Nazis. Jews are scrambling for visas to India, to America, to anywhere that will accept them. There is discussion of mass evacuation—some say just women and children, some say just the leadership—yet no one seems to know how and to where, exactly.
There is even talk—by the more deluded among us—of cooperation with the invading German forces. These poor souls think they can persuade the murderers to spare our lives in exchange for leveraging Palestine’s industrial capacity. But Aron knows from his sources that the SS have already created a Einsatzkommando—the same murder squads that now operate throughout Europe—tasked with ‘dealing with’ the Jews of Palestine once Rommel breaks through British lines.
And the Einsatzkommando, it is clear, will enjoy the whole-hearted assistance of our neighbors, Palestine’s Arab population. I see them, my love. I see the eyes of the Arab day laborers in Tel Aviv. The way some of them look at us makes my knees turn to jelly. No one has forgotten the slaughter in Hebron, only 13 years ago. What will become of us without British soldiers to intervene? The Arabs listen to their leader, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who is the guest of the Reich in Berlin, and moves in the highest Nazi echelons. I’ve seen the transcripts of his broadcasts, which are monitored by the Hagana. They are bloodthirsty rants, and his rabble understand—and seem to look forward to—what is expected of them. What did we do to them to inspire such hatred? We are a community of 500,000 Jews. We built all our settlements on land bought and paid for. What kind of culture produces people that gleefully plan how to divide up Jewish property, post-slaughter?
Panic sits mutely like a clenched fist in every stomach. In every household, it tingles the limbs and trembles the hands, waiting for the right moment to spring. Families are buying up cyanide capsule kits as fast pharmacies can stock them. Parents are instructed to dose their children first, then themselves. It is said to be quick and painless. I understand and frankly admire these people, who insist on living the lives they’ve built, then dying on their own terms. Perhaps, if we had children, my love, I would follow their path.
But I have work now. For there is talk, there are endless rumors, there is never-ending debate on the street and in the corridors and backrooms of the Jewish Agency, there is unremitting angst, and there are nightmares. Yet there is also action.
I see less of your brother these days. He arranged a one-room flat for me on Bugrashov Street, just a block away from his own. He craves his privacy, as you will learn when you finally arrive. I wonder if you know why. I found out quite quickly, and care not a whit. He claims you must know. I have learned so much about Aron, and I wonder if you truly understand your brother, my love. When he left, you were still a child—the little brother abandoned. This is why I have always understood the anger you carry at Aron’s ‘desertion.’ Yet I fear you have grown, while your judgment of him may have remained adolescent.
In any event, we will sort out your relationship with your brother when you arrive. “There’s little a drink and a warm fire can’t solve,” as my father used to say—although even thinking of a warm fire makes my sweat trickle faster down the sides of my cheek, dropping to my shoulder and sliding sweetly down my chest. Yes, I am thinking of you, my sweet, as I write this...
There will be time enough for that when you arrive. I mentioned that there is action alongside the panic. Well, I am now part of it. I have joined the Hagana! Together with Aron, I am part of the Northern Plan now.
Aron speaks constantly of empowerment: national empowerment, personal empowerment. He’s quite loquacious, your brother. He paces when he talks, the palm of one hand grasping the back of the other behind his back, save the occasional beard stroke, when he is unshaven. The Northern Plan, he says, is the ultimate Jewish empowerment—much as I see the cyanide capsules as the ultimate family empowerment in this twisted world in which I find myself. How sad to say this! Yet what is power if not absolutism and adamant faith in self?
The street talk, of course, is of ‘Masada on the Carmel’—a fortress holdout until death. This could, of course, come to pass, but the Hagana leadership is made up of chess players, apparently, who think many moves ahead. There are only half a million of us here in Palestine, and it is not infeasible that we could all be concentrated in one place. The Axis will ultimately lose the war, this has become clear to all. The question is, when? The Yishuv leadership is banking on the fact that even if the British retreat to India, they will ultimately regroup. They believe we could conceivably hold out at the Carmel until the Allies return. They believe there’s a chance of survival. Certainly, no one has proposed a better solution—nor one that will so definitively safeguard our national aspirations once the war is over. For, having held out against the Germans and so markedly contributed to the British war effort, how could His Majesty’s Government refuse in good conscience our demands for autonomy?
Indeed, Aron claims the British are cooperating in full. In British military installations across Palestine, orders have been given that when the retreat begins, they will leave behind sufficient weaponry for the Jews. The Hagana, myself now among them, is working tirelessly to stockpile and transport enough food and medical supplies to Haifa. The physical defenses on the southern side of the Carmel are being strengthened. The guerilla bases in caves throughout the mountain range continue to grow in equipment and sophistication.
Today’s Davar reports that Adam Czerniakow, the Jewish head of the Warsaw Ghetto, committed suicide following the Nazi’s demand that he prepare a list of 100,000—a fifth of the Ghetto population—for deportation and likely murder. The Nazis, it is said, simply appointed someone else, and the population of the ghetto hand themselves over to their oppressors like sheep.
The Germans are used to a certain type of Jew, my love, but they will be surprised when they approach the outskirts of the Haifa Ghetto, as we’ve taken to calling it. For at every step they take toward this Ghetto, Aron believes, they will be struck by a new kind of Jew. A Jew unafraid to defend himself. A Jew unwilling to submit. A Jew for whom boldness is not anathema, nor self-sacrifice foreign. We have created this new Jew over the past generation in Palestine, Aron says. Now, it is time to show the world who he is and what he can achieve.
We will do this together, my love, for I am certain you must be close. Your letter from Tehran was a cool breeze in this unbearable August heat. Where are you now? On the train to Bandar Shahpur still? On a ship to Aqaba? I dream of you. I wake nightly, expecting your rough hand to slide across my cheek in comfort. It is the thought of you that stems my own panic, for I am distracted by my work on the Northern Plan, but not fully immune to the nightmare of the Einsatzkommando. Come back to me quickly, my love.
I love you with all my heart,
Danuta
