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Jewish Underground Brought Holocaust Survivors to Mandatory Palestine

(Jerusalem Post) Yonah Jeremy Bob - Tzvi Netzer was the operational leader on the ground for the clandestine "Bricha" (Escape), the effort to bring 250,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland to Mandatory Palestine. His daughter, Miri Nahari, spoke with the Jerusalem Post. Born in Poland in 1920 as Tzvi Melnitzer, Netzer, a Zionist activist, fled Warsaw in 1939 to escape the Nazis. He reached Mandatory Palestine in 1943 and was sent to Poland in 1945 to bring the surviving Jews. He succeeded in cutting crucial deals with both Polish and Russian authorities. With his boss, Shaul Avigur, running the overall European operations from Paris, including purchasing and delivering supplies and equipment, Netzer began getting thousands of Jews out of Poland. The British were committed to holding Jews in displaced persons camps for extended periods and often to sending them back to their countries of origin, even if their home communities no longer existed. In one displaced persons camp holding 300 Jews, 30 Bricha activists infiltrated the camp at night by digging under the camp fence. In one evening, they moved the 300 Jews out of the camp. While the Romanians were stopping Jews, the Bulgarian authorities were cooperating, enabling the Bricha to smuggle 15,000 Jews from Romania to Bulgaria and then onto boats out of Europe in only two weeks.
2019-10-11 00:00:00
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