The children arrival in Atlit, Eretz Israel, February 18^th, 1943

Prof. Yaffa Eliach: The Shtetl Museum - "A Shtetl Grows In Rishon

ילדי טהרן: הילדים של חורף שנת 43' The Children of Winter 43'

זה עובר כתשובה חרישית, כסוד לחש, את שיחם של רוקמי מחשבה עדינה המרבים כה לתהות מה יתרון ומה שחר, מבחינת ערכי נצח, לכלי המדינה... זה סותר כתשובה חרישית ונשכחת את הסקפסיס הדק היודע-כמו כי חומה ומגן מנדודים ומפחד הם רק כלי אשר אין הוא תכלית לעצמו. הם רק כלי אם הוגה-הדעות לא ימציא לו את תשובת-ההסבר הסופית "לשם מה"... הם רק כלי מסוכן שעתיד הוא אפילו לדלדל ולרושש את נשמת האומה... זה עובר כתשובה חרישית-ונשלחת בשאלות הספק הצודקות בהחלט... זה עובר כתשובה של לילות ערבות שלג ושל דרך קרבות בלי עוזר ובאין עד... זה עובר כמו קרב על פת לחם ודוחן, זה עובר כמו זכר בדידות ואימה, זה נותן, כאמור, בכלים מקצת תוכן ומזכיר במקצת מה יתרון ולשם מה... זה נשקף משנים רחוקות שנושנו בדמות ילד נודד. ואומר המגיד: מילדי טהרן הוא... חיל וסרן הוא... לבדו הוא עורך מלחמה עולמית. כך אומר המגיד... ופני ארץ נושבת וחומה ומגן ופשוט קורת-גג אז נראים כתכלית נעלה ונשגבת וכעיקר אשר לא יאומן כי הושג.

נתן אלתרמן ילדי טהרן (חמש עשרה שנה מעת הגיעם ארצה) גם אחר שירבו הם שנים ויזקינו, גם אחר שהזמן ישנה תארם ויעטרם קרחות וזקנים שילבינו, יקראו הם עדין ילדי טהרן... את כינוי-הילדות יגררו עד שיבה הם כצליל זר ומוזר. אך שמים עדים כי אי אז, בתקופת ילדותם, שבעתים היה זר עימהם הכינוי ילדים. כי באיש הזקן לפעמים שוכן ילד. אך ילדי טהרן – זה כינוי שצופן זכר עת אכזרית ורודפה וחובלת בה הילד נלחם על חייו כזקן. מתרחקת העת ושוקעת שקוע, אך פתאום מבקיעות מתוכה בענן מלחמות הייאוש והעול והכוח של ילדי התקופה של זקני טהרן... כן, מלחמת זקני טהרן בני העשר, ומלחמת זקני קזכסטן בני השש, כל זקני הקרבות בין סיביר ופולסיה, הזקנים הקטנים רדופי האש. מתוך שם, מתוך צליל, מתוך זמר שכוח, זה בוקע פתאום ומוסך בלא יודעים אל תוך כלי הברזל והניר והרוח של תחיית היהודים את דמעת הילדים. אל תוך כלי הברזל והניר והרוח, אל פלד אשר לצבא, אל הכתב, זה נמסך כמו תוכן חשוב... זה שלוח כמו ברק משמעות ממעבר לסף.

The Children Of Zion

Written by: Henryk Grynberg

Translated from Polish and annotated by Zeev Schuss.

לזכר  האבות, האמהות והילדים שעצמותיהם סימנו את תחנות הסבל בשטחים הלא אנושיים של אירופה המזרחית, סיביר ואסיה המרכזית.""

"To the memory of the fathers, the mothers and the children whose bones marked the stations of suffering in the inhuman areas of Eastern Europe, Siberia and Central Asia"

ולכבוד "ילדי טהרן" אשר נפלו במלחמות ישראל וקרבנם חקוק בליבנו לעד!

To honor the "Tehran Children" who fell in the Wars of Israel and the memory of their sacrifice is forever engraved in our hearts!

The List of "The Tehran Children"

The File in Excel

The file in Acrobat

"The Tehran Children" in JewishGen Yizkor Books Section

Michael Fosh (Pusch)

The Children of Zion

"The Tehran Children"

By Ada Holtzman, Tel Aviv May 6^th, 2004

In my endless quest for Holocaust literature, I have found and read Henryk Grynberg's book translated from Polish to Hebrew: "Dzieci Syjonu", The Children of Zion, The Path of Agony of the " Tehran  Children",  Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1995. The book was translated by Zeev Schuss who added excellent historical background to the children testimonies. The book is based on 73 testimonies - "Protocols" - taken and registered from the children immediately after their arrival to the Promised Land... The protocols of the children testimonies are in the archives of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in the collection "Poland - Ministry of Information and Documentation," Box 197, Folders 1-4, "Polish Information center - Jerusalem, reports of Jewish Deportees." They were the basis of Grynberg's book, which enfolds the historical events of this less explored chapter of the Holocaust, through the eyes of the little Jewish refugees from Poland and their struggle for survival in the Soviet Union. The book was also published in English, as I have found out later: Henryk Grynberg, Children of Zion, Northwestern University Press, 1998. The original book in Polish: DZIECI SYJONU, Warszawa: Karta, 1994 ¹⁾.

In the end of Grynberg's book was the original list of those who arrived on February 18th, 1943, those who arrived on August 1943 and those who gave the testimonies. I knew immediately that I shall translate and process these lists and post in JewishGen, as part of their Holocaust database, as integral part of the survivors' database, in addition to the Pinkas Hanitzolim (Register of Survivors) already computerized. The aim is to find them relatives they have never known, as they were so little when the cruel circumstances of the war separated them from their family, their roots and their past. The list contained the year of birth of the child, the parents in many cases and the town of birth in Poland. I have translated it and then I have found the original typed list in English in another book about the Tehran Children (in Hebrew): Gadith Shamir: "The Tehran Children" Since the Eruption of Second World War, Published by the Public Commission to Commemorate the "Tehran Children" by Meir Ohad, Tel Aviv 1989. There I found the original list (but only those who arrived on February 18th, 1943), which was translated to Hebrew in Grynberg's book. I matched my entries to this list.

Re-cheking the data was like inserting the information for the second time. Then Mr. Henryk Greenberg proofread the list and my sincere thanks to him for his kind cooperation with JewishGen and me. I thank also Yad Vashem who approved the project. My thanks also to Eva Floersheim, author of the moving web site about Holocaust children searching their identity, see: "Missing Identity", at JewishGen web site, who also proofread the list.

The escape of the children from Poland saved them from the clutches of the Nazi extermination machine, yet exposed them to cruel fate of helpless refugees, fighting in all sorts of hardship: diseases of many kinds, incomprehensible hunger, cold, forced labor and orphanage. These events are less documented in history books, and in this respect the "Children of Zion" contributes, through the testimonies of the individual child, to the general review of history.

The "Tehran Children" escaped from Poland to Russia after Germany conquered it in September 1939, or lived in regions annexed to the Soviet Union following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, which divided Poland among the two powers.  Some of the children's original Polish towns moved from Germans' hands to Russian and via versa during the period in which the Jews run away, fleeing eastward from certain death, as history proved later. There were around 300,000 such refugees according to some estimates.²⁾

In the beginning of 1940 the Soviet authorities through the NKWD, commenced mass expulsion of Polish citizens to gulags in Siberia. Many hundreds of thousands Polish citizens, many Jews among them were expelled to the depth of Russia, Siberia. After weeks of horrible journey in signed cattle cars, the deportees were settled in Siberia and lived under harsh and most difficult conditions. The mortality rate was very high; many of the children died or became orphans in this period.

On June 22^nd, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked U.S.S.R. in spite of the non-attack Pack between them and new era started for the Polish refugees, Jews among them. An amnesty was declared and all the Polish citizens were allowed to set free of the gulags. A mass emigration started, towards the Asian territories, mainly Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

A wave of hungry, sick and wearing torn rags flooded the towns of Tashkent, Samarqand and others. Many of the children lost their parents in this period and many of the children themselves died of hunger and epidemics.

At the same time, General Wladyslaw Anders was freed from prison in Moscow and he founded the Polish Armies in Exile, which would attack Germany in Italy, passing through the Middle East. The Soviet authorities agreed to emigration of about 24,000 Polish citizens with the Anders army, around 1000 Jewish children, most of them orphans and 800 Jewish adults.

By the end of 1941, Sikorski, the prime minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile, managed to convince Stalin to send around 25,000 Polish soldiers of the Anders Armies to Iran, for arming itself and strengthen the British armies in the Middle East. 33,000 soldiers left and 11,000 citizens with them, 3000 children among them, of which there were around 1000 orphan Jewish children3⁾. The "Tehran Children" left in trains from Samarqand to Krasnovodsk, and from there, through the Caspian Sea to Pahlevi, an Iranian port town on the Caspian southern shores. From there they moved to Tehran.

In Pahlevi, refugee tent camps were immediately erected. The Jewish children suffered from heat, starvation, sicknesses and also the abuses by their fellow Poles. The situation changed once the Jewish Agency learned about the refugees' camps and opened its Eretz Israel Office in Tehran. Messengers and instructors were sent to the camp and all living conditions were improved significantly. It is worth mentioning Tzipora Sharet who was such a leader from the Yishuv in Eretz Israel and her contribution to the children welfare. David Lauberg (Laor), one of the adult refugees, was appointed to be the head of the camp. In 1995, David Laor submitted many documents, photographs and items to Yad Vashem. This material was the basis for another book about the "Tehran Children" published by Yad Vashem (Hebrew) "I Did not Have time to Be Sad", 1996 (the story of  Kaner Majloch from Pruchnik as a mirror to the children's odyssey).

In January 1943, the evacuation of the tent-city began. The children moved to Afhaz and then to the Iranian port of Bender Shapur, where they embarked on the S.S. Dunera, headed to Karachi. This route was chosen since the Iraqians refused to grant them transit visa through Iraq. From Karachi they embarked another ship, the Neurolia, which sailed to Suez, Egypt. Then by train crossing the Sinai Desert, quarantine in El Arish for other two days, and finally after an odyssey of 4 years of agony, they arrived home and disembarked the train in Atlit in Eretz Israel ("Palestine" at that time), on February 18^th, 1943.

The second group of (around 110 children) arrived already via Iraq after the British oppressed the Rashid Ali's revolt that year.

The small Yishuv (the name of the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel prior to the foundation of the State of Israel), rejoiced and welcomed the little children as if miracle has happened. The children were distributed among Kibbutzim, Moshavim, and various educational institutions. Natan N. Alterman, the famous Hebrew poet wrote a poem which is well known about the Tehran Children "who also after they will grow old, will always be "the Tehran Children"...

..." yes, the war of the elders of Tehran, ten years old,

and the war of the elders of Kazakhstan, six years old,

all the elders of the battles between Siberia and Polesie

the little elders, persecuted by fire..."

But 35 did not grow old... 35 of the children fell in battle during the wars of Israel, mainly the Independence War in 1948, scarifying their lives for the freedom of the new State of Israel. Those 35 young brave boys and girls were commemorated in the book by Meir Ohad, Yizkor in Memoriam to the "Tehran Children" Who Fell in the Ranks of the Israeli Defence Forces", the Public Commission to Commemorate the "Tehran Children", Tel Aviv 1977.

Details (in Hebrew) about each combatant, his biography, the date and place of his death and his burial place are in the Israeli Ministry of Defense web site: http://www.izkor.gov.il

Notes:

¹⁾ Another source about the odyssey of one "Tehran Child" is:  Dr. Dorit Bader Whiteman "Escape via Siberia Jewish Child's Odyssey of Survival", Holmes and Meier, 1999 (English).

²⁾ Dr. Robert Rozett and Dr. Shmuel Spector, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem & Facts on Fine, Inc., Jerusalem 2000, page 434.

³⁾ Stefan Wiśniowski comments: “By the end of 1942, Anders managed to convince Stalin to send around 41,000 Polish soldiers and 74,000 accompanying civilians to Iran, to arm themselves and to strengthen the British armies in the Middle East. About 1,000 of these were orphaned Jewish children. The "Tehran Children" left in trains from Samarqand to Krasnovodsk, and from there, through the Caspian Sea to Pahlevi, an Iranian port town on the Caspian southern shores.  From there they moved to Teheran.”

Appendix I: Non-Aggression Pact, "The Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty"

Appendix II: German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty

Appendix III Polish-Soviet Agreement

ואם חלית בקדחת תרופה יתנו לך? – קדחת. רק אם חומך מאד עולה, יסכימו: - "כן אתה חולה". "תרנגולת עיוורת" - חולי משונה – קרבנותיה תסמא. ברקיע שמש אש ואתה בחושך מגשש. ובבוא החורף, עת כפורים, אתה לבוש בגדים-חורים. "אכלת", מעילך זולל? עכשיו יבב, צעק, קלל!... אף על פי כן, איתן רוחנו, שיום יבוא ומענינו יוכחו: נפלה טעות ופה, בטיגה, לא נמות. האל שאת הים הבקיע הוא יעזבנו? ללא יושיע? ---------- הה, סיביר את ארורה! את בבשרנו כמארה. וביום ישמח הלב ביין, הדמעה תשור מעין, כי נזכרך הארורה!

מ. עמידור (זבירוחה) נכתב בסיביר ב-1941 , ופורסם בספרה של גדית שמיר: "ילדי טהרן", ערך מאיר אהד, הועדה הציבורית להנצחת "ילדי טהרן", תל אביב 1989 סיביר בקרונות צרים מפלדה ולחים אנשי הנ.ק.וו.ד. גסי רוח, קישחים, הרעיבונו, היצמיאונו, גידפונו נורא והיה לנו רע, כל כך רע. וכשלבסוף, אחרי 18 לילות בלי שינה ו-18 ימים של אימים עצרה הרכבת בטיגה השחורה, נפל עלינו המורא. בצריף ארוך אנו גרים. אתמול היינו עוד זרים, היום ביחד, ואין קיר בין איש לאיש, כמו בדיר. רואים הכל, לכל עדים. במה ליבם הם סועדים, מה מדברים הם בשינה, כל כך קרובים, שהכינה תוכל עבור מגוף אל גוף. אף בכינים פה יש שיתוף. לחמנו צר, אבל במים אין מחסור פה בינתיים. גופך רזה כה ותשוש, אך די דמים בו – ליתוש. להניסם נדליק אשים, אז מטפלים בפשפשים.

With So Much to Live for...

By Alexander Zvielli

Published in Jerusalem Post, Independence Day Supplement, May 3^rd, 1987

Edited by Stella Fruchter (Hadassah (Halina) Lampel's sister) and Ada Holtzman, April 2004

Hadassah (Halina) Lampel, Nowy Sacz (Poland) 1929 – Latrun, (Israel) 1948

HADASSAH LAMPEL was a 19 years old when she fell in the Israel War of Independence. She had disobeyed an officer's order and joined the first armored vehicle entering Latrun on the night of May 30, 1948.

A few days before her heroic death, she pleaded with armoured corps commander Chaim Laskov, "Why don't you let me go? I am a trained radio operator. Do you have something against women?"

Laskov said, of course, that he did not and explained that he was following a new directive against unnecessarily endangering the lives of women soldiers. He was angry with Lampel – she had disobeyed a direct order. But he couldn't help admiring her.

He and Colonel Mickey Marcus, the American volunteer who had just been promoted by David Ben Gurion to be in charge of operations at the Jerusalem front, listened to Lempel's rushed but calm reports from Latrun, indicating the Arab legion's artillery positions. They heard her say that her commander was mortally wounded in the heavy firing which penetrated their armoured car. The radio went dead and Laskov and Marcus frantically tried to renew contact with Lampel. It was too late.

THE LATRUN ridge was a bone in Israel's throat until the Six-Day-War, when it was conquered by the IDF. Whenever I drive by there, I think of Halinka – and also of another Halinka, my sister, who was killed five years before the War of Independence in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

They were so much alike, so young, so pretty, with long, braided hair falling on their shoulders. My Halinka and Halinka Lampel had so much to liver for, and yet were sacrificed in blood and fire. May their memory be cherished forever...

Hadassah Lampel was born in the pretty little Polish town called Nowy Sacz, in the foothills of the Beskid Mountains, on February 12, 1929. A good pupil, she loved to read and was drawn to fairy-tales. When she was nine, she surprised her classmates by reciting a poem which asserted that "Halinka was a brave girl." She lived up to this reputation.

Halinka's father,  Maurycy Lampel, a government official, was not an observant Jew, but used to take his yearly leave in September during the Jewish holidays. Halinka hardly knew Yiddish or Hebrew as Polish was spoken at home. Her family led a modest, pleasant existence.

THE FAMILY'S pastoral life was rudely shattered on September 1, 1939, at the outbreak of World War II. They fled east to escape the speedy German advance, first settling in Russian-occupied Lvov. It was there that Halinka encountered, for the first time, the cruel fate of a homeless and penniless refugee.

Polish zloty were no longer worth the paper they were printed on and there were long queues for bread and other essential commodities. There was overcrowding, uncertainty and fear – the usual war-time privations.

Things improved slightly when Halinka's father found a better work, in the town of Mikuliczyn, near the Hungarian border. On June 29, 1940 they were expelled in locked freight train to Siberia, to Asino lager in the Tomsk region. There they suffered cold, starvation and all sorts of other hardship. Father, Maurycy, was engaged in forced labor, carrying logs of trees cut in the forests near the Czulim River. He soon got malaria and his heart weakened from day to day.

The authorities could not provide all the deportees with roof over head and food, as they were not prepared for such massive influx of refugees. Thus, one morning the family was expelled to the Ural Mountains, region of Swierdłowsk, Rewda district, which had copper mines. The people worked in the forest, father as wood cutter, mother and other women dug ditches for water pipes. Mother suffered of gum disease, which was very scary. Young men worked in the train station as carriers of copper or logs of wood, which were shipped to Germany.

On July 29^th, 1941, after the German invasion to U.S.S.R., an agreement was signed between the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Soviet Union. The Anders army was founded in Russia and a general amnesty was declared. A mass movement of all the refugees in Siberia started towards the Asian territories of U.S.S.R and the Lampel family wandered again to Uzbekistan to the town of Samarqand. Because the refugees were overcrowded in Tashkent, the family moved to Samarqand, another station in their odyssey of agony. In Samarqand the Father died of starvation and heart failure, as he could no more endure the miserable life which was their share.

Their escape saved them from Nazi genocide, but exposed them to other life of hardship and wretchedness. There was little food and primitive living conditions. Vermin, diarrhea, cholera and spotted typhus took as heavy toll among the refugees.

Then came a unique opportunity.

Halinka's Father succeeded in placing her among what became known later as the "Tehran Children" – Jewish orphans who were allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Iran with General Anders's Polish army.

"It was such a difficult decision," recalls Stella Fruchter, Halinka's sister who lives in Tel Aviv today. "We were such close-knit family. But we really had no choice. We loved Halinka and wanted the best for her." Halinka refused to leave her ill parents. Mother despaired and asked their neighbors to influence father to change his decision. Mother had the feeling she will never see her daughter again. We drunk together the hot water "Kipiatok" (their breakfast) and we said our farewell and departed for ever... Father went with her to the assembly place. "Halinka's last words to me were asking me to comfort Mother who got high fever by then. In my memory remains a silhouette of a slim 13 years old girl, with short cut hair, sack on her back and... barefoot. Her image fades, and now I see her only through my tears... She disappeared for ever in the lane", adds Stella Fruchter, Halinka's sister.

The prevailing circumstances justified such a step. Young children earned their miserable keep by hard work like carrying heavy pails of water. Dubious cotton-seed cakes called Makuch, were the hungry refugee families' main staple. The primitive Polish army field hospitals were full of dying refugees; mass funerals were held daily. The friendly local population had nothing to offer, they were just as poor and miserable themselves.

The train carrying the Jewish orphans left Samarqand on August 10, 1942. It wended its way through the endless desert of Kara Kum, the children suffering from terrible heat and exhaustion. They passed Soviet Turkmenia to reach Caspian port of Krasnovodsk.

There was hardly any food on board, drinking was scarce and the sanitary facilities miserable. But no one was able to eat anyway – the Caspian see was extremely rough.

Halinka was 13 years old when they disembarked at the Iranian port of Pahlevi, a slim, speck of a girl with a sack containing all her belongings on her shoulders. He hardly resembled the pretty plump girl she became after a few years in Eretz Yisrael.

THE CHILDREN travelled on a dangerous, winding road across the Elburs Mountains. There were steep ascents and deep ravines. Accidents were frequent.

Finally the children reached a tent-city on the outskirts of Tehran. Here, at last, they received decent, efficient care by the Yishuv's representatives. The group stayed in Tehran for more than five months before moving on the Afhaz and then to the Iranian port of Bender Shapur, where they were packed aboard the by-now infamous S.S. Dunera.

The children sailed to Karachi since the Iraqis refused to grant them transit visas – to India and on to the Suez on another ship, the Neurolia. From Suez, they were shipped to two-day quarantine in El Arish.

Finally, on February 18, 1943, the 716 "Tehran Children" were welcomed by a rejoicing Yeshuv at the Atlit transit camp.

The Yishuv gave the orphans all the love it could muster. Here, at last, there was a land where they were sincerely and heartily welcome. Halinka was adopted by Kibbutz Givat Brener. It was a world full of strangers. Halinka found it difficult to find a common language with the 12 and 13-year-old companions – innocent girls and boys preoccupied with their own affairs.

But Halinka, a quiet and wistful girl found herself liking those innocent souls who had never learned the dread of homelessness, hunger and fatal diseases.

There were times Halinka's friends from among the "Tehran Children" kept bread and leftovers from the Kibbutz dining hall, hidden under their mattresses. "Just in case..." they said, when confronted by their friends, just in case...

HITLER was, however, already far away. The Allies were pushing Rommel and the Italians out of North Africa. It was so good for Halinka and the others to shower in the morning, have a good breakfast and attend school again, to shake off the painful stigma of being Jew. Soon Halinka began to write long letters to her family in Russia, expressing her hope that the war be over soon and that they would join her. Father was no more alive but Halinka did not know as we never informed her about his death. A friend of the family, Leah Lustig, who arrived earlier to Eretz Israel, told her. All her letters were burned when Stella and Mother crossed the Polish border on their way to Eretz Yisrael a few years later.

But the Jews in Palestine were only beginning their real struggle for Independence. In 1947, Halinka joined the Palmach, training at Yagur and Maoz Haim. By then she had found her nature identity and those who knew her were convinced that this quiet and thoughtful girl would be the first to volunteer, however dangerous the assignment.

Mother Rozalia and her sister Stella arrived to Eretz Yisrael 4 months after Halinka's death on September 20^th, 1948. It took a while before they learned the sad details of their tragedy, Halinka's death during the war of Independence.

Israel knows many instances of bravery. But whenever I pass by the Latrun ridge, admiring the beautiful and by now peaceful countryside, I feel that Halinka never considered herself a heroine. For her, the Latrun battle was only another step in pursuit of that once elusive goal – the establishment of the State of Israel.

From "Tehran Boy" to Poet and Playwright

By Sraya Shapiro

Published in "The Jerusalem Post", "Features There and Then", Sunday, May 2, 1993

Contributed to this web site by Mrs. Stella Fruchter (Lampel).

PITY the teenagers who by the force of events changes countries of residence, transmutes cultures. He is liable to undergo a trauma affecting the rest of his life.

Benzion Tomer, novelist and poet, speaks knowledgeably, for it happened to him. He came to Palestine with the "Tehran Children" 50 years ago.

Tomer was born in the Polish town of Bilgoraj, a little place famous in Jewish history for its printing press and for being the birthplace of Rosa Luxemburg and of the brothers Singer, the writers.

When World War II broke out, the family fled to Russia. "We were detained and expelled to Siberia, to Krasnoyarsk. After the German attack in 1941, we were freed and moved to Samarqand."

Free they ostensibly were, but hungry. "To assure my subsistence, my father put me into an orphans' home, claiming he was my uncle. Thus I became one of the "Tehran Children" who were allowed out of the Soviet Union in the wake of General Anders' Polish army, en route to the Western Desert." The term "Tehran Children" reflected the fact that the teenagers had to wait in Tehran for a permit to move to Palestine.

"I was assigned to the educational institution of Hashomer Hatza'ir in Mishmar Haemek. I don't regret my years there. But when they tried to depict the Soviet paradise to me, I balked. Ya'acov Hazan, the grand old man of the Hashomer Hatza'ir, spared no effort to convince me. But I knew the truth about Russia, Hazan did not."

Tomer joined the Palmach detachment of the Hagana and was sent to the Gush Etzion settlements on the eve of the War of Independence. Gush Etzion fell and its defenders, as well as the inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, were taken by Jordan's Arab legion to a P.O.W. camp near Mafrak.

They spent 11 months in the camp. "It was as if the trauma of the Russian days had returned after a reverie of five years of leave."

THE TRAUMA of adaptation to the new freedom, the new country, continued to haunt him. Combining memories with imagination, Tomer wrote a play, Yaldei Hatzel; "Children in shadow" is about the dilemmas facing young people in their new environment. The play was successfully performed by Habima and Benzion Tomer won a name in Hebrew letters.

He read literature and philosophy at the Hebrew University. he wrote poetry but deep in his mind he ruminated on the memories of youth. He began to write a big novel ("perhaps a trilogy"), not an autobiography but a related account of the events he had witnessed. A few chapters have been published by Yalkut, an army sponsored publishing firm.

The novel was completed only recently and has not yet appeared in print. Paradoxically, a Russian version of the novel will appear before the Hebrew original goes to press. Zvezda in Petersburg will serialize the 450-page novel, as the Russian tend to do; a new immigrant living in Acre translated the book into Russian. The Russians were interested because the narrative is mainly about Tomer's Russian experience. A Kiev-based journal plans to publish a Ukrainian version.

"If we took our Zionist assignment seriously," muses Tomer, "we should have launched a crash program of Russian translations from Hebrew literature.. The purpose would not be political but educational. The thousands of young people arriving from the former Soviet Union are avid readers – Russia is perhaps the only remaining place where people read assiduously. To tackle Hebrew, with perhaps an addition in English, is a task few teenagers may hope to master in a short time. Give them the gist of Hebrew literature in a language they know. If we don't, they will be estranged", Tomer fears.

THE NAME of the game is "Cultural Absorption." Tomer has been into this since he followed Yigal Allon into the Ministry of Absorption and subsequently to the Ministry of education. Writers and intellectuals generally should do their bit in promoting their cultural and political credo, Tomer feels. "I have never been a party man – a writer is more easily identified with a general movement, not with an institutionalized political framework. But in 1977 I joined the Labor party in opposition, just to make my stand."

In Europe, he maintains, writers are more active on political issues than here. "See Havel in Prague; the Polish Solidarity was the brainchild of intellectuals; half the Cabinet members in Ukraine are writers; the Ukrainian ambassador here is an intellectual, a personality."

Tomer himself did a stint of duty as cultural attaché in Brazil. For a time he was chairman of the Federation of Israel Writers' Association. He took some interest in the internal controversy in the Hebrew Writers' Union which was accompanied by much mudslinging.

Tomer is definitely getting weary of public affairs/ He bends his efforts now mainly to translating poetry into Hebrew from the several languages he knows. The writer in him has finally taken over completely.

The arrival of the children in Atlit transit camp, February 18^th, 1943

There has been an organization of "the Tehran Children and their Instructors", number of amuta (non-profit organization in Israel)
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