Memoirs of a Young Terrorist

The next morning, April 17, 1947,  I was awakened by the sound of sirens. Tsion jumped to the window. "The street is full of soldiers. We must have been discovered. Where are you?"

I was already in the hiding place we had decided upon, under the bed, squeezed between a chest full of bedclothes and the wall. The wide mattress overhead covered me like a roof. Tsion climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over him.

"How are you down there?"
"I’m not here."
"Do you hear any noises on the stairs?"
"No." My ribs were beginning to ache.
"Can you hear ..."
"I can’t hear anything."
Only the bedsprings above squeaked every time Tsion turned over.
"Why don’t they come?" he hissed.
"Maybe the sirens were just to announce a general alarm."

It was not a general alarm, but neither were the sirens meant for us. They were sounding at that same moment all over the country to drown out news of four Jewish boys who had been hanged that morning in Acre fortress: Dov Gruner, Yechiel Dresner, Mordechai Elkachi, and Eliezer Kashani. The day before these four had been transferred secretly from their cells in Jerusalem. The next morning they were hung without being allowed to say good-by to their families . Without even a rabbi to hear their last confession.

Two more condemned boys, Moshe Barzani and Meir Feinstein, did not make the trip to Acre until five days later. This gave them five more days to think about the surprise they had in store for their executioners. As they mounted the gallows , Moshe and Meir planned to blow themselves up and any British officials who happened to be present.

The idea of this suicide had originated with the two boys themselves during the long nights of waiting. On a piece of paper which they managed to smuggle to their comrades in the adjacent cell they wrote: "Get us two handgrenades." One for their hangmen - one for themselves.
 
 Moshe and Meir were both natives of Jerusalem, but they had never met in the outside world. Moshe was a member of Lechi, Meir of Etsel. A mutual acquaintance - Death - introduced them, and when Death makes an introduction it is not simply face to face, but heart to heart.

The night before their execution they were visited by Rabbi Goldman who stayed up with them the whole night. He spoke about matters of life and death: about life which is death, and death which is life.

The rabbi knew nothing about their plan. "I’ll wait in the cell next door until morning. I want to be with you until the very end." He wanted at least one friendly face to appear among the cold, hard stares of the hangmen when the boys mounted the gallows. The condemned begged the rabbi to bid them farewell and go, and the rabbi, thinking that they wanted to spare him the horror of the execution, was overcome with emotion and refused. And so he waited in the next cell for the morning to arrive.

Moshe and Meir didn’t wait any longer. Although it was no longer possible to avenge the death that awaited them, it was still within their power to cheat it of its moment of triumph. They placed one of the bombs between their chests, joining their bodies in an embrace. Meir had only one arm to put around Moshe; the other had been amputated after it was mangled in the assault on the railroad depot in Kfar Atta. Moshe, however, had two arms. One he put around Meir and with the other he held a burning cigarette against the fuse of the bomb....
 
 

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