Leon Uris (62 page)

They drove toward the all-Arab city of Nablus.

Caldwell smiled as he remembered the officers’ club and the sheeny jokes. He could see his mother leading him into the office of an arrogant Jew doctor.

And they think Hitler was wrong, Caldwell thought. Hitler knew what the score was. It was bloody well too bad that the war ended before he could do them all in. Caldwell remembered entering Bergen-Belsen with Sutherland. Sutherland was sick at what he saw. Well, Caldwell wasn’t sick. The more Jews dead, the better.

They passed into an Arab village with a record of known hostility toward the Yishuv. It was an Husseini strong point.

“Stop the car,” Caldwell ordered. “Now you two men listen to me. We are throwing this kike out.”

“But, Major, they’ll murder him,” the guard said.

“I admits I’m put out at the Jews, sir,” the driver said, “but we got a responsibility to deliver our prisoner, we has.”

“Shut up!” Caldwell barked, half hysterically. “I said we are throwing him out. Both of you are to swear he was taken by Maccabees who roadblocked us. If you open your mouth otherwise you’ll end up in ditches. Am I clear?”

The two soldiers merely nodded as they saw the mad look in Caldwell’s eyes.

Ben Solomon was unchained from the floor. The car slowed near the coffeehouse. The boy was hurled into the street and they sped away for Jerusalem.

It worked just as Caldwell knew it would. Within an hour Ben Solomon had been killed and mutilated. He was decapitated. The bodyless head was held up by the hair and photographed with twenty laughing Arabs around it. The picture was sent out as a warning of what was going to happen to all the Jews sooner or later.

Major Fred Caldwell made a disastrous mistake. One of the Arabs in the coffeehouse who saw the boy thrown from the car was a member of the Maccabees.

General Sir Arnold Haven-Hurst, KBE, CB, DSO, MC was infuriated. He paced the office of his headquarters in the Schneller compound in Jerusalem, then snatched Cecil Bradshaw’s letter from his desk and read it again.

The situation has degenerated to such a state that unless means can be recommended for immediate stabilization by you I will be compelled to suggest the matter be turned over to the United Nations.

The United Nations, indeed! The tall blond man snorted and crumpled the letter and threw it to the floor. A week before Haven-Hurst had ordered a boycott on all Jewish places of business.

This was to be his thanks after fighting the Jews for five years. He had warned the Home Office in World War II not to take these Jews into the British Army but no, they wouldn’t listen. Now, lose the Palestine mandate. Haven-Hurst went to his desk and began working on an answer to Bradshaw’s letter.

I propose immediate adoption of the following points, which in my opinion will stabilize Palestine.

1. Suspension of all civil courts with fines and punishments and prison terms to be dispensed by the military commander.

2. Dissolve the Yishuv Central, disband the Zion Settlement Society and all other agencies of the Jews.

3. Cessation of all Jewish newspapers and publications.

4. Swift, quiet elimination of some sixty top Yishuv leaders. Haj Amin el Husseini has proved this method successful against his political opposition. This phase could be carried out by Arab confederates.

5. Complete use of the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan.

6. Imprisonment of several hundred secondary leaders in the Yishuv and their subsequent quick banishment to some remote African colonies.

7. Grant the military commander the right to destroy any kibbutz, moshav, village, or part of a city found with arms. Institute a nationwide screening with all illegals to be deported at once.

8. Impose collective fines against the entire Jewish population for every act of Maccabee terror, and place these fines so high the Jews will begin to co-operate in the apprehension of these gangsters.

9. Offer larger rewards for information on key Maccabee terrorists, Aliyah Bet agents, Haganah heads, etc.

10. Hang or execute every apprehended Maccabee gangster on the spot.

11. Institute a series of boycotts on Jewish business, farm products, and halt all Jewish imports and exports. Keep complete control on all the movements of all Jewish vehicles.

12. Destroy the Palmach by armed attacks on kibbutzim known to be harboring them.

My forces have been compelled to operate under most difficult circumstances. We have been made to follow the rules and restrain ourselves from the widest and most effective use of our powers. On the other hand the Maccabees, Haganah, Palmach, and Aliyah Bet observe no rules and, indeed, attack our restraint as a weakness. If I am allowed to use my power I assure that order will be restored in short time.

General Sir Arnold Haven-Hurst

KBE, CB, DSO, MC

CHATHAM HOUSE, INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS, LONDON

Cecil Bradshaw’s color was a sickly gray when General Tevor-Browne finally reached his office.

“Well, Bradshaw, you asked Haven-Hurst for his ideas. You have them now.”

“Has the man gone mad? Good Lord, his report reads like Adolf Hitler’s ‘Final Solution.’ ”

Bradshaw picked up the twelve-point “Haven-Hurst Report” and shook his head. “God knows we want to keep Palestine, but murder, burning villages, hangings, starvation? I cannot recommend this beastly thing. Even if I did I don’t know whether you have enough men in the British Army who could carry it out. I’ve been for the Empire all my life, Sir Clarence, and many’s the time we’ve had to take harsh and unfair measures in our own behalf. But I also believe in God. We’re just not going to hold Palestine this way. I wash my hands of the matter. Let someone else endorse Haven-Hurst ... I won’t.”

Cecil Bradshaw took the “Haven-Hurst Report” and crumpled it. He put it in his large ash tray and put a match to it and watched it burn. “Thank God, we’ve got the courage to answer for our sins,” he whispered.

The question of the Palestine mandate was thrown open to the United Nations.

N
OW IT WAS
the late spring of 1947 and Ari Ben Canaan disappeared from Kitty Fremont’s life. She did not see or hear from him after Mount Tabor. If Ari had given any messages to Jordana, Jordana had not delivered them. The two women scarcely spoke a word to each other. Kitty tried to be tolerant but Jordana made even that difficult.

The Palestine mandate issue was handed over for the United Nations to attempt to unscramble it. United Nations machinery was in the process of forming a committee of small, neutral nations to investigate the problem and come up with recommendations for the General Assembly. The Yishuv Central and the World Zionists accepted mediation of the problem by the United Nations. On the other side, the Arabs used threats, boycotts, blackmail, and any other pressure they could find to keep the Palestine issue away from an impartial judgment.

At Gan Dafna the Gadna military training speeded up. The Youth Village became a chief arms depot. Rifles were brought in to be cleaned by the children and then smuggled in village trucks to Huleh settlements and the Palmach. Time and again Karen was called upon to go out on arms-smuggling missions. The assignments were accepted by her and the other children without question. Kitty’s heart was in her mouth every time Karen went out, but she had to keep her silence.

Karen doggedly continued to press the search for her father without success. The once bright promise at La Ciotat faded.

The girl retained contact with the Hansens in Denmark. Karen wrote each week, and each week a letter and often a package arrived from Copenhagen. Meta and Aage Hansen had given up all hope of ever getting her back. Even if Karen did not find her father there was something in the girl’s letters that indicated she was lost to them. Karen’s identification with Palestine and being Jewish became a nearly complete thing. The only qualification was Kitty Fremont.

Dov Landau was taking strange turns. At times he would appear to be breaking out of his reclusion, and in those moments he and Karen added a deeper dimension to their relationship. Then the very audacity of his coming into the clear light would force Dov back into his shell. Whenever he was able to reason about his role he disliked himself for what he felt he was doing to Karen. Then loyalty to him produced self-pity and he at once hated and loved her. He felt he must not contaminate Karen with himself, yet he did not wish to cut off his only link with humanity. The times he would sink back again into bitterness he often stared at the blue tattoo number on his arm by the hour. He would turn to his books and his painting with a savage concentration and close out all living things. Just as he neared the bottom, Karen would succeed in pulling him out of it. His bitterness never quite grew so deep that he could turn on her.

In the time that Kitty Fremont had been at Gan Dafna she had made herself one of the most important persons in the village. Dr. Lieberman leaned on her more each day. Looked upon as a sympathetic outsider, she was frequently able to exert the needed extra influence of someone “outside the family.” Dr. Lieberman’s friendship was becoming one of the most rewarding she had ever known. She was completely integrated into the life of Gan Dafna; she did splendid work with disturbed children. Yet a barrier still remained. She knew that she was partly responsible for it but she wanted it that way.

Kitty was far more at ease with Bruce Sutherland than she was with the people of Gan Dafna. With Sutherland she was in her own element and she looked forward with increasing impatience to those free days that she and Karen could spend at his villa. When she was with Sutherland it renewed her awareness of the difference between herself and the Jews.

Harriet Saltzman came to Gan Dafna two times. On both occasions the old woman pleaded with Kitty to take charge of one of the new Youth Aliyah Centers in the Tel Aviv area. Kitty was a wizard at organization and a stickler for routine. This, plus her over-all experience and ability was badly needed at places not so well run as Gan Dafna. Harriet Saltzman wisely calculated that the “outside” influence of a Kitty Fremont would be a tremendous asset to a Youth Aliyah Center.

Kitty refused. She was settled at Gan Dafna and Karen was completely at home. She did not seek a career in Youth Aliyah and had no aspirations.

The main reason, however, was that she did not want to be placed in a capacity where she would have to answer for Gadna activities and arms smuggling. This would put her into the category of a participant. Kitty clung to her neutrality. Her work was going to remain professional and not political.

To Karen Clement, Kitty Fremont was like an older sister who was raising her without the help of parents. Kitty made herself indispensable to the girl. The Hansens in Denmark faded from her life and there had been no progress in finding her father. This left only Dov and Dov gave nothing. Kitty encouraged this condition of dependence—she wanted Karen to need her. She wanted Karen to need her so much the need would defeat the hidden foe, the power of Eretz Israel.

With the passing of the weeks holidays came and left Gan Dafna.

There had been Tuv b’Shevat in the late winter, an arbor day, to perpetuate the fanatical tree planting of the Jews.

Late in the month of March came Hero’s Day. Jordana Ben Canaan led the Gadna troops on a hike along the border ridges to Tel Hai where Barak and Akiva had entered Palestine from Lebanon. It was now hallowed ground. At Trumpledor’s grave soldiers of the Palmach and the young soldiers of Gadna gathered to pay homage to the new heroes.

The glorious festival of Purim came. Gan Dafna erupted with Mardi gras- and Halloween-like costumes and floats and decorations that turned it into a carnival. The Purim story was told—of how Queen Esther saved the Jews, then in the Persian Empire. The evil Haman, the Amalekite, plotted to have the Jews annihilated but Esther unmasked Haman and saved her people. The grave of Esther was on the border at Fort Esther, where part of the celebration took place. The Purim story was a real thing to the children of Gan Dafna, for almost all of them had been victims of a later-day Haman named Adolf Hitler.

Passover came and went.

The holiday of Lag Ba Omer occurred on the full moon thirty days after the end of Passover and in time became a memorial to the second uprising of the Hebrews against the Romans. Homage was paid to the great sages buried in the city of Tiberias and in Safed and in Meron. There were the graves of Moses Maimonides, the immortal philosopher and physician, and of the rabbis, Hiya, Eliezer, and Kahana and of the great revolutionary, Rabbi Akiva. There was the grave of Rabbi Meir the Miracle Maker. All these were in Tiberias where the festival started and whence it moved to Safed. From Safed the pious moved in a great gathering body to Meron and to the graves of Johanan the Sandal Maker and Hillel and Shammai. The ancient synagogue still stood in part at Meron with its door which was supposed to welcome the return of the Messiah.

Of all the rabbis praised on Lag Ba Omer, Simon Bar Yohai received the greatest reverence. Bar Yohai defied the Roman edicts which banned Judaism and he fled to the village of Peki’in where he lived in a cave and where the Lord provided him with a carob tree for food and a stream for water. He lived in hiding for seventeen years. One day each year he carne to Meron to teach the forbidden Torah to his disciples. It is said by both Mohammedans and Christians that they owe the life of their religions to those rabbis who kept Judaism alive in hiding. Without Judaism and the Holy Torah neither Christianity nor Islam could have survived, for their roots were in the Torah and their very life and air and blood were the doctrines of Judaism.

While in hiding Bar Yohai wrote the
Zohar—
the Brightness—which was the standard work of the mystic Cabala. Hasidic and Oriental celebrants converged on the holy cities of Tiberias and Safed from all corners of Palestine and continued on to Meron to spend several days and nights in prayer and song and dance and praise of Simon Bar Yohai.