Perfect Heroes: The World War II Parachutists and the Making of Israeli Collective Memory

2. The Institutionalization of Memory: Initial Commemoration of the Parachutists, 1945 –1949

45 2 The Institutionalization of Memory Initial Commemoration of the Parachutists, 1945–1949 Afterward, when news of [her] certain death came in and the shroud was lifted, and we heard about her mission and her cruel demise , the need to establish a monument in her memory came up. Moshe Breslavski, “Her Legacy” The time has come to conclude the episode of our comrades’ mission and heroism and establish an everlasting memorial to them. “[Remarks] on Jewish Partisan Battles: From a Letter” Introduction At the beginning of his book James E. Young warns: “Memory is not shaped in a vacuum; the motives of memory are never pure.”1 Since antiquity various groups have used commemoration as an important way to shape their collective memory, a tool with which they may determine what to remember and what to forget, what to emphasize and what to downplay. Commemoration takes on and casts off forms in keeping with the commemorators ’ circumstances and preferences. Although forms of commemoration in themselves are not always of much historical value, as part of a society’s overall patterns of remembering, they are a key to understanding its essence. Commemoration fills several needs simultaneously. The first is sociological : the common creation of a memorial or ritual acts as a source of unification and continuity. The second is educational: commemoration acts as a tool to develop an ethos that may be passed down from generation to generation. The third is psycho-theological: by creating ceremonies and sacred spaces, commemoration integrates with or substitutes for existing patterns of belief. However, all forms of commemoration have a common denominator: simultaneously confronting the present and future, they almost always serve the interests of the commemorators and not necessarily those being commemorated. Since commemoration fills different functions at various levels, by examining the phenomenon of commemoration from different points of view the historian can glean interesting and important insights about the commemoration that historical examination alone would not illuminate. Commemoration is a very important mechanism in strengthening and cementing every society’s identity. It is even more crucial in a nascent society, which uses the rituals of commemoration to shape its self-image and sketch the contours of its national consciousness-in-formation. In doing so it often attempts to invest its mosaic of coexisting spheres of memory with a uniform texture. Thus, the process of creating “legends of remembrance alongside a history of forgetting” does much more than determine national commemoration patterns.2 Like an organism that concurrently reflects and shapes its surroundings, in a nascent society the crafters of the rite of remembrance play a dual role. On the one hand they reflect the ethos of the culture-in-formation of a given collectivity. At the same time, however, they shape the contours within which this culture acquires its form. In doing so they create an additional sphere—one of limitless dynamic commemoration—that reflects the dialectical tensions manifested when any society institutionalizes its rites and forms a national tradition of remembrance.3 Covering the period 1945 –49, this chapter focuses upon two aspects of the parachutists’ mission that served as a transition between its being an active military operation and an object of national commemoration. One aspect is an extension of the operation itself, namely, the final British efforts in the mission. During the early months of this period the British functionaries officially notified the parachutists’ families about their loved ones’ deaths, decorated the ill-fated officers from the Yishuv with posthumous citations of valor, and handed over the parachutists’ insurance benefits to the recipients. By focusing upon the way the technical and financial aspects of the affair were handled by both the British and Yishuv authorities, I uncover the dynamics according to which these two collectivities dealt with the first stages of transforming mission into memory. 46 The Heroes The second aspect focuses on the commemoration of the fallen parachutists and the early rites of remembrance that developed during the period in question. Simultaneously occurring in several kibbutzim and politicalmovementsthroughouttheYishuv,theyreflectedthecommemorators ’diverse political, social, and cultural motives in the first years following World War II. Here I explore how the combination of will and resources— both human and economic—transformed the proposed commemorative forms from abstract ideas into concrete practice. In addition, I show how patterns of commemoration were successfully adopted by members of the organized Yishuv as they...