“Two Hundred Days of Terror” is the name given to a period in the history of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel during World War II. This period extended from the spring of 1942 until November 3 of the same year, when units of the German army under the command of General Erwin Rommel were advancing eastward towards the Suez Canal from North Africa.
THE PLANS OF THE NAZIS
In April 1942, the unit of the German army Afrika Korps under the command of General Erwin Rommel, began to advance in North Africa towards the Suez Canal in Egypt. Terror gripped the “Yishub.” It seemed that after the great victories of the Nazis in North Africa, no force could stop them. The way to the Land of Israel would be open if they reached the Suez Canal. At that moment, the extermination of European Jews was in full swing, and news about it began to infiltrate the leaders of the Yishub. There was certainty that if the Germans arrived, they would exterminate all the Jews of the Land of Israel: men, women, and children, as they had done in Europe. And they were not mistaken… The Germans established a particular unit in Egypt, Einsatzgruppe Egypt: 24 SS soldiers under the command of Walter Rauf. Rauf was the infamous inventor of the death trucks, which had their exhaust gases connected to the sealed interior compartment of the truck, where victims – who entered the vehicle thinking they were being transported – would die inhaling the toxic gases. The death trucks were already waiting in Egypt. It was supposed that the extermination of the 500,000 Jews in Israel would be carried out by the same means and methods as the murder of European Jews. The Germans, who needed reinforcements, would take advantage of the help of the local Arab population to perpetrate the systematic murder of Jews under the guidance and command of that small German team. This plan corresponded to the promise that the Germans had made to the antisemite leader of the Palestinian Arabs and a friend of Hitler, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was exiled to Berlin. Many Arabs awaited the arrival of Hitler’s armies, whom they called “Abu Ali“, hoping that the Germans would defeat the British and thus they could exterminate the Jews.
THE PLANS OF THE JEWS
On April 17, 1942, Moshe Sharet, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, addressed General Claude Auchinleck, commander of the Eighth Army of the British Army, with the following words: “There is no doubt that if the Nazis invade the Land of Israel, all the Jews of this land will be murdered. The extermination of the Jewish race is a basic premise of Nazi ideology. Recently published official news indicates this policy is being implemented with cruelty that cannot be described in words. Hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in Poland, the Balkan countries, Romania, and in all the districts invaded by the Germans in the Soviet Union as a result of mass executions, forced deportations, and the spread of hunger and disease in ghettos and concentration camps. There is reason to fear that much faster destruction will fall upon the Jews of Israel if we fall into the hands of the Nazis.”
SURRENDER
Some Jews, with much naivety, proposed to do what other occupied nations in Europe did, that is, surrender to the Nazis and try to reach some agreement with them. This naivety was based on the belief that “the Nazis who would come to Israel would not treat the local Jews as they treated the Jews of Poland and Germany. First, because they didn’t disturb anyone who was in Europe and besides, because the Jews of Israel were not successful entrepreneurs but village Jews, dedicated to industry… so they will have more respect for these Jews”. They also warned that resisting and fighting could provoke or increase the hatred of the Germans towards the Jews, and that “perhaps with reconciliation and effort we will achieve more“. These ideas were criticized for increasing defeatism and dissuading Jews from fighting for their lives. In practice, some diplomatic arrangement was attempted on the British side: the plan was to ask the British to grant the Jews of Israel, who were then under British mandate, the status of ‘British prisoners of war’ if captured and to enjoy the same rights as British prisoners. They also asked by diplomatic means that the British threaten the Nazis that if they exterminated the Jews, the British would also kill the German prisoners in their possession. These ideas ended up being a fantasy as England never agreed to grant any of those rights to the Jews of Israel. Furthermore, the British prepared for the possibility of being forced to evacuate the Land of Israel and withdraw to the east – Iraq and India. These evacuation plans did not include the Jews of the Land of Israel. If the Germans invaded Israel, the Jews would have to face the Germans alone, without the help of the British army. The Yishub – as the Jewish settlement was called before the declaration of independence of Israel in 1948 – had about 500,000 Jews. Yitzhak Tabenkin, who later became a member of the Knesset of Israel, said: “We have no choice but to fight this war with all the forces we have… we must defend this Yishub and our flag with or without a uniform… if our spirit is in us, we will support it with all our might, or we will also fall in it with all our might. We are ready to stand and ready for sacrifice. We will not defeat the enemy forces with fatalism, but with great responsibility, there is no alternative… “
HIDING
Many Jews tried to hide or at least hide children in European churches, monasteries, and hospices, including Germans, which were in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, or contact friendly Arabs, or willing to receive a material reward to hide Jewish children with them until the war ended. There were differences of opinion in case the country fell into the hands of the Germans. On the one hand, there was the pragmatic position of David Ben-Gurion, who insisted that the improvised soldiers of Yishub could not defeat Hitler’s army; they could not achieve what the French, the Dutch, and all the European countries that the Nazis had defeated had not achieved. In Ben-Gurion’s opinion, in case of a German invasion and a British retreat, the combat forces of the Haganah and the leadership of the Yishub should try to integrate into the British army, withdraw to India, and return to Israel when the course of the war changed.
FIGHT TO DEATH
On the other hand, there was the more nationalist position expressed by Yitzhak Tabenkin, who said: “… we have to stay here until the end, for our future, for respect for ourselves, and for loyalty to our history”. This second position proposed concentrating the entire Jewish population in the area of Haifa and Galilee, moving there when the British withdrew from the country, and fighting to the last man. Haifa and the Carmel mountain range are in an area that offers the opportunity to resist and repel the invader, who was moving in heavy armored forces and would have difficulty moving in that mountainous area. Tabenkin’s plan was named the “Masada of Carmel.” According to this plan, the civilian Jewish population would be protected in these enclaves. At the same time, commandos and guerrilla units would attack to contain the enemy’s advance.
Members of the military organization “Etzel” conceived a similar plan, but with a more significant symbolism: in case the Germans invaded Israel, the Jews would take refuge in the Old City of Jerusalem, fortifying themselves within the walls and waging the “final” battle from there. Before the end, they would proudly and patriotically declare Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount (Har-HaBayit) in Jerusalem! For the leaders of these plans in Haifa or Jerusalem, it was clear that they might delay the invader’s advance if the Germans arrived. Still, the terrible end of the civilian population was inevitable. The same name, “Masada of Carmel,” expressed the belief that there was no possibility that the Jewish settlement could survive if the Germans invaded Israel. Remember that Masada, or Metsadá, is the name of one of the last refuges of the Jews who resisted the Roman army in the 1st century, who, when they saw that the enemy could not be stopped, proceeded to collective suicide.
PROVIDENTIAL VICTORY
On July 1, 1942, the British managed to halt Rommel’s advance 180 kilometers from the Suez Canal. There, they established a new line of defense and appointed a new commander, General Bernard Montgomery, who ordered the cancellation of all British withdrawal plans from Israel and prepared to face the Germans head-on in Egypt. Both sides knew that this battle would be decisive for the fate of the Middle East. And thanks to God, after months of a hard-fought battle, on November 3, 1942, Montgomery’s forces launched the final attack and defeated Rommel’s forces in the Battle of El-Alamein, in Egypt. This triumph was one of the decisive turning points for the victory of the Allies in World War II and meant the end of the 200 days of terror experienced by the young colony of Israel during the Shoah.
