Jewish Brigade
Jewish Brigade |
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Sleeve badge of the Jewish Brigade |
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active | September 20, 1944 to summer 1946 |
Country | United Kingdom |
Armed forces | British Army |
Armed forces | infantry |
Type | brigade |
Strength | 30,000 men |
Second World War | Italian campaign |
Commanders | |
Brigadier | Ernest F. Benjamin |
insignia | |
Identification symbol |
The Jüdische Brigade ( Jewish Brigade ) was a fighting unit in the British Army during the Second World War that fought on the side of the Allies against the Axis powers . The brigade was composed of volunteers from the area of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine .
history
background
The British government under Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain published the 1939 White Paper on May 17, 1939 , in which the division of the mandate area into a Jewish and an Arab area was rejected. After the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, David Ben-Gurion , chairman of the Jewish Agency , the official representative of the Jews in the League of Nations Mandate Palestine, declared: “We will fight the White Paper as if there was no war, and at war fight as if there was no white paper. "
Chaim Weizmann , President of the Zionist Congress , offered the British government the unrestricted cooperation of the Jewish community in the British League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and attempted to negotiate the establishment of a Jewish unity that would fight under British aegis under a Jewish flag. His request was refused, but in September 1940 15 battalions of Jews from Palestine could be assembled. a. fought in Greece against the Germans as part of the Greek campaign. Together with Commonwealth and Free French troops and Palmach auxiliary troops, some of these battalions fought in the same year against the Iraqi army (May), which fell from the Allies under a nationalist government ( Qailani ) , and against the Vichy French colonial troops in Syria and Germany, allied with Hitler's Germany Lebanon (June and July). Erich Jehoshua Marx , who was drafted into the British army as a Jew in May 1941, also reports of many inscrutable troop transfers without any chance of being able to actively intervene in the military conflicts.
The Palestinian Regiment
Despite British efforts to recruit an equal number of Jews and Arabs into the "Palestine Regiment", three times more Jewish volunteers than Arab volunteers. On August 6, 1942, three Jewish and one Arab battalion (s) were formed. The Palestine Regiment was used in the First and Second Battles of El Alamein . The British aim was also to counterbalance the efforts of Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , who sought cooperation with the Nazi regime just a few weeks after Hitler's " seizure of power ".
Formation of the Jewish Brigade
After reports of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust were published by the Allies , British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a telegram to the President of the United States suggesting that Jews of all peoples had the right to oppose Germans in a clear manner Fight recognizable form. Franklin D. Roosevelt replied five days later that he had no objection.
After some hesitation, on July 3, 1944, the British government approved the formation of a Jewish brigade with some Jewish and non-Jewish officers. On September 20, 1944, an official communiqué announced the formation of the Jewish Brigade of the British 8th Army . The brigade comprised over 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine, who were divided into three infantry regiments , a gunner regiment , a liaison unit and other units. Her brigade badge was the Star of David .
Michael Evenari reported that non-Jewish English artillerymen had to be used in the brigade, which led to tensions and anti-Semitic conflicts. And there were hierarchy problems: “As a battery sergant major, I was the highest rank among the NCOs. As far as I know, it was an unusual situation, because the King's Regulations only allow British soldiers to command British soldiers. "
The contemporary press described the deployment of the brigade as an "empty gesture" ( The New York Times ) and as "five years too late" ( The Guardian ).
Participation in the war, help to escape (Brichah) and acts of revenge after the war
Under the command of the Canadian brigadier Ernest F. Benjamin , the Jewish Brigade fought against the troops of the Axis powers in Italy from March 1945 until the end of the war. Ernst Jehoshua Marx, who advanced north with the brigade from Taranto , tends to give the impression that the brigade was entrusted more with tasks behind the front line than with direct combat operations. In May 1945 the brigade was stationed in Tarvisio on the border with Yugoslavia and Austria , where it played a key role in efforts to bring Jews from war-torn Europe to Palestine. This escape aid (Hebrew brichah ) continued even after the brigade was disbanded. In addition, some soldiers from the brigade contacted survivors from concentration and extermination camps , for example in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp . Among them was Adin Talbar , who spent four months in the British military prison in 1947 because of his attempt to make a film about Bergen-Belsen . The film was destroyed by the British. Immediately after the end of the war there were retaliatory actions by members of the Jewish Brigade. Israel Carmi and Zeer Keren reported in a television documentary for the BBC about an incident in Austria how the genocide of European Jews was to be avenged: After a Nazi had drawn up a list of SS perpetrators to save his own skin , the identified and liquidated the highest ranks of small troops.
So was Hans Gaier , a cruel police chief of the security police in Kielce after the war, as reported in Russia missing and declared in 1954 by the District Court of Mannheim dead. In fact, however, Gaier went into hiding in Austria and lived there under a false identity, under a false name in Graz. Gaier was tracked down there at the end of May / beginning of June 1945 by Yanush Peltz from Kielce, a soldier in the Jewish Brigade, whose family was murdered. Peltz probably obtained information about Gaier's whereabouts and true identity from a British agency.
The remaining names were passed on to the British secret service. According to a British non-Jewish army officer, non-Jewish British soldiers were providing logistical support.
The 8th Palestine Brigade under the command of Major Davis was involved in the violent surrender of the Cossacks who fought on Germany's side to the Red Army ( Lienz Cossack tragedy from May 29 to 31, 1945).
In July 1945 the brigade was transferred to Belgium and the Netherlands and disbanded in the summer of 1946. Jehoshua Marx documented the entire journey of the brigade from Taranto in the south to this point in his letters and diaries in detail and clearly. He too often takes a critical look at the behavior of individual members of the brigade, especially with black market deals. A battalion of the Jewish Brigade was in May 1949 and secure an intern in the Netherlands by German paratroopers - Regiment .
legacy
Of the approximately 30,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine who served in the British Army during World War II, over 700 were killed in service. Some brigade members later took on leading roles in the new army of the State of Israel . 35 brigade members were promoted to generals in the Israel Defense Forces .
Veterans of the Jewish Brigade
reception
- In Our Own Hands: The Hidden Story of the Jewish Brigade in World War II . Documentary by Chuck Olin, 1998
- The film Inglourious Basterds (2009) takes part on the history of the Jewish Brigade and the organization Nakam back
- The Jewish Brigade (comic series) by Marvano (2013-2016)
See also
- Jewish Legion in World War I
literature
- Milena Guthörl: The Jewish Brigade. An example of transcultural impact processes in the Second World War. Heidelberg 2010 [Master's thesis], The Jewish Brigade. An example of transcultural impact processes in the Second World War. - heDOK .
- Howard Blum: The Brigade. An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII. HarperCollins Publishers, New York 2002, ISBN 0-06-019486-3 .
- Howard Blum: Your life in our hands. The history of the Jewish Brigade in World War II. Econ-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-430-11565-5 .
- Morris Beckman: The Jewish Brigade. An Army With Two Masters 1944–1945. Spellmount Publishers, Staplehurst 1998, ISBN 1-86227-032-5 .
- Bernard M Casper: With the Jewish Brigade. Edward Goldston, London 1947.
- Vladimir Struminski: On all fronts. Jewish soldiers in World War II. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-942271-80-6 .
- Leopold Marx : My son Erich Jehoshua. His life path from letters and diaries , Bleicher, Gerlingen, 1996, ISBN 978-3-88350-730-9 . Erich Jehoshua Marx was drafted into the British Army in Palestine in May 1941. In the following years, however, he was not used for combat missions, but commuted with his unit between Haifa, Alexandria and Zapern. It was not until autumn 1944 that his unit was integrated into the Jewish Brigade and taken to Italy. From Taranto, Marx and the brigade followed the troops advancing north without ever being seriously involved in combat operations. Before he returned to Palestine, he was gradually transferred to the Netherlands. His father's book, which is based on many letters from Erich Jehoshua Marx, provides very haunting images of life in and with the Jewish Brigade and the life of the countries liberated from fascism.
- Michael Evenari : And the desert bears fruit. A life story. Bleicher, Gerlingen 1990, ISBN 3-88350-230-8 . The book contains a detailed account of Evenari's time in the British Army and in the Jewish Brigade and largely corresponds to the experiences of Erich Jehoshua Marx, who later became a student of Evenari.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Howard Blum, The Brigade . P. 5.
- ↑ a b c Leopold Marx: My son Erich Jehoshua. His life from letters and diaries
- ↑ Michael Evenari: And the desert bear fruit , p. 101.
- ^ "Letter from Member of Parliament Richard HS Crossman to Adin Theilhaber." House of Commons. June 18, 1951.
- ^ "Letter from Undersecretary State of War Michael Stewart to Member of Parliament Richard HS Crossman." British War Office US / F.872. January 15, 1948.
- ^ Morris Beckman, The Jewish Brigade , 1998, p. 126 f.
- ^ I found Dad's Nazi killer - and shot him dead , The Jewish Chronicle, October 2, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
- ^ Jewish Brigade shot Nazi prisoners in revenge The Independent, December 13, 1998, accessed July 16, 2015.
- ↑ With Kind & Kegel in the genocide
- ↑ Jürgen Thorwald, Who they want to spoil, Stuttgart 1952
- ↑ Howard Blum: Your Life in Our Hand , 2002, pp. 293 ff.
- ↑ article in the Independent (Engl.)
- ^ Table of contents on the Chuck Olin Films website , information on the film at IMDb