71 INFANTRY BATTALION AND PALMACH HANEGEV
My family had come to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1710. I was born in the Smichov surburb on the 6th October, 1925. My mother, Gertrude, separated from my father Arnest Krauss six years later, and I spent one year in a children’s home. My mother died at the hands of the Gestapo. My father and his brother and their wives perished at Majdanek.
In 1942 I was sent to Theresienstadt, where I was not alone as my grandfather and grandmother were also there, as well as an aunt and the husband of my mother’s sister. Later, my father’s sister with her husband and daughter also arrived there.
In January 1943 the old people were sent away. But fate caught up with me and I was taken to Birkenau at Christmastime in 1943. Then came the selections, and I was with 1,000 others who were shipped to work in Germany. Only a quarter of our number survived; then came the long death march on foot back to Theresienstadt. On being liberated, I weighed 36 kilo. I was free, and I returned to Prague on 9th May, 1945. None of my family had survived and I was alone. I had to decide what to do with my life in the liberated republic.
What bliss freedom is, but how does one cope with the fact that not a single member of my large family had returned? It was necessary to find something to do and a place to live. I didn’t know anything, had no schooling. And I had nobody to advise me what to do next. I began by living in grandfather’s little villa, as the neighbors had informed me that the Germans who occupied the villa during the war, were living in Prague-Vrsovice. They were alleged to be a Czech-German family. I went to the police in Vrsovice and asked them to accompany me to the Germans. They did so, and the frightened Germans gave me the key; on top of it all they wanted me to give them money for the repairs they did on the house. The policeman yelled at them and there were no more protests. So I had a place to live.
Now for work; I wanted to learn to be a cook in the Zlata Husa, a posh restaurant on Vaclavske Square. The position included food, but no money, not even for the train. After six weeks my efforts to become a chef came to an end. Now, what next?
Somebody suggested enlisting in the Czech army as a volunteer. I took the decision on the spot, especially after they told me at headquarters that when I join the army as a volunteer I could choose where to serve and also that they would take off three months from my time of service. I started in the Stefanik Barracks in Smichov, Prague XVI. After basic training I was assigned to the program’s education department and became a librarian, seller of the army publications, and for a time I was even manager of a canteen. Of course there were girls, too, and instead of going to meetings I would go to the Petrin Park where I even had my own bench. I attended an evening business school, and when I finished the army I became a clerk. I was very proud of my status and even had my own calling cards printed.
I also used to go to the Jewish community offices; it was a place where one could meet friends and acquaintances from the camps. There we got Purim, Channukah and UNWRA (United Nations Welfare and Relief Association) parcels and even our first suits we got there. Some of my friends emigrated, at that time it was possible without problems, there was democracy, I was already working in the office of Zbrojovka Brno, and didn’t even pay attention to the Communist Revolution in February 1948.
At that time the Jewish Agency began a recruiting campaign for military service in the Haganah. A medical commission in Karlova Street number 10 either recommended or rejected the volunteers. They found me fit and within a few days, in March 1948, I was on my way. Leaving the country was semi-legal. That meant going through the customs at Ash, but in the guise of a Polish Jew. From the American zone in Germany we went by bus to Hof and from there by train to Munchen. The train station in Munchen consisted of one railway wagon. The rest didn’t exist. It was quite pleasing to see the destruction of Germany and the German people. We again passed a check-up in an American military hospital and then were dispatched somewhere behind Munchen to the former military barracks “Gereestried.”
A military train was organized which went across the whole of Germany and France to Marseilles, to the camp called Grand Arenas. There we received basic military training while we waited for available ships. Then our ship arrived, with the flag of Panama, and then by way of Genoa, Malta and Rhodes we sailed on to Haifa. From Haifa back to Acre and then by small boats illegally to the buses which took us to Haifa, to the Technion which became our temporary barracks. The British Mandate was coming to an end, but in Haifa the British were still in control.
I was given my military Haganah number 73669. The first combat action was in the Galilee near Birwa. Our group faced Kaukji’s army of Arab volunteers. We had our first casualties. One of them was a Czech. The next assignment was in Nahariya, a small holiday resort at that time. The government declared martial law in order to conduct a census of the Jews and the Arabs.
After that I was transferred to Tel Litwinsky, a large military base near Ramat Gan. On my first furlough and visit to Tel Aviv, I was searching for my cousin who had gone to Israel with the Children’s Aliyah in 1939. I found her with the help of Magen David Adom. She was already married and actually she was the only member of my family who survived. I began dating a sabra girl, who came from a good Jerusalem family. For 50 years we keep seeing each other from time-to-time in Israel. Today she is already 70 years old and lives with her husband in Tel Aviv.
At that time one didn’t get any pay in the army, and there were no ranks. In mid-October 1948 there was an attack on Beersheba which was an Arab market-town. After it was taken, our unit of Palmach Hanegev progressed to the Negev down to the Egyptian-Jordanian-Israeli border near the Dead Sea. The fortress there was called Ein Chutsub. There was one instance when the Arabs attacked us.
Afterwards we moved back to Tel Litwinsky and I was demobilized from the IDF, after completing exactly one year of military service.
I also want to relate how I was a “Shabbes Goy” in Tel Litwinsky. In 1948 the Haganah announced that whoever used to celebrate Christmas abroad would get furlough. I applied, and got two days free. In Tel Aviv at that time, one didn’t see a single soldier, as we were on Alert I. My cousin predicted they would put me in prison. When I returned to base they began using me as a Shabbes Goy when the fire went out in the kitchen. At least I served a good cause.
I parted from my girlfriend. She wanted to get married but I didn’t. It was the main reason why I decided to return to Czechoslovakia in April 1949.