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3 1 The Operation Reluctant Heroes, 1943–1945 It’s nice to know that I won’t vanish from the world without a trace. I’m referring to Edna and your love for me. I don’t insist on any monument other than this feeling, and I object to being made into a national hero. I know it wasn’t heroism at all. Rafi Reiss’s last letter, sent from prison in Banska Bystrica, 19 Nov. 1944 You should know that only those who want to die do so! Enzo Sereni’s parting words to Reuven Dafni before setting out on his mission, April 1944 Introduction “Of course we thought we’d return,” stated Surika, one of three women from the Yishuv who parachuted into Europe during the Holocaust. “We weren’t adventurers, nor were we setting out to commit suicide. We were all convinced that we would see our loved ones, our friends, our families again.” After a slight hesitation, the small, vibrant woman continued, the sparkle in her eyes dimming for a moment: “Except, perhaps, for Rafi Reiss. Before leaving Bari I accompanied him to a store where they made recordings so that in case he didn’t return his baby daughter would be able to hear his voice one last time.”1 “Haviva was afraid she wouldn’t return,”added Haim Hermesh, the only one of the Slovakian group to come back alive. “More than once she told me that even if she were to survive—and she had serious doubts about that—it was already too late for her to become a mother. But she wasn’t the only one who questioned the possibility of survival. Assuming that he might not return, the night before departure Abba Berdiczew burned his diaries so that no one would leaf through them after his death.” Immersed for a moment in his memories, Hermesh turned his head and continued: “But the one who was really sure that he wouldn’t return was Zvi BenYa ’akov. When we set out on the mission, we said good-bye to our families at home. The only one who came to Tel Aviv to say good-bye to us was Michal, Zvi’s wife. Small and skinny, with her stomach showing the beginnings of pregnancy, she had her picture taken with us in the parachutists’ famous ‘class picture’ on the eve of the mission. It was impossible to tear the two apart. When our jeep drove off toward Egypt, she ran after it until she appeared to us, from a distance, like a tiny point on the horizon. And then Zvi burst into tears and said in a strangled voice, ‘I’ll never see her again. I’ll never see her face again.’”2 To this day the parachutists’mission is considered the pinnacle of Yishuv activity on behalf of European Jewry during the Holocaust. At its height the operation encompassed some 250 volunteers who came from settlement movements, the military, and the Palmach, a Zionist military home guard originally established by the British to defend Palestine against invasion. Of those, 110 were trained in various preparatory courses in Palestine and abroad. Historians and actual participants differ over the number of persons who actually parachuted as part of the operation, reached Europe through other channels, or were scheduled but ultimately did not take part due to time restrictions. The parachutists themselves claim that thirty-seven men and women were assigned to the operation and that thirty-two of them did, in fact, participate. By contrast, historians claim that a total of fortytwo persons were scheduled to go on a mission for either the British or the Jews. This number includes thirty-two parachutists who reached Yugoslavia , Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Bulgaria, and Italy during the war or immediately thereafter; five who were scheduled to operate in Bulgaria , Austria, or Greece but eventually did not; and five other parachutists who operated in Europe under other circumstances. However, close scrutiny of the biographies of several of the parachutists casts doubt as to their participation in the operation. For example, Peretz Rosenberg, who is always referred to as the first Yishuv volunteer to parachute into Europe in the spring of 1943, departed on his mission before anyone drew up the operation’s detailed plans or compiled a list of participants. This raises the following question: By which criterion were the participants counted? In other words, who was included from the outset and who was included retrospectively? 4...

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