In 1942, the Jewish
Agency for Palestine applied to the British for assistance in sending
Jewish volunteers to Europe, who as emissaries of the Yishuv (the
Jewish community in pre-state Israel), would help to organize local resistance and rescue
operations among the Jewish communities.
The British were unwilling
to send the hundreds of volunteers envisioned by the Jewish Agency,
but ultimately agreed to train a few units of Jewish parachutists who
were recent immigrants from certain targeted countries that they wanted
to infiltrate. The British Special Operation Executive (SOE) intended
to deploy the volunteers as wireless operators and instructors on their
liaison missions to the partisans, while the British Military Intelligence
branch (MI9) planned to use them to locate and rescue Allied POWs and
escapees. Both branches consented to the volunteers' dual role as British
agents and Jewish emissaries.
The candidates were selected from the
ranks of the Palmach (the strike force of the Jewish military underground), Zionist youth movement activists, and
Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine who were already serving in the British army. Of the 240 men
and women who volunteered, 110 underwent the training program that commenced
in Cairo in March 1943.
Because of certain operational difficulties,
only 32 of the trained volunteers (including three women) were sent
on missions to Europe. Nine of the Jewish parachutists were sent to Romania, three to Hungary,
five to Slovakia, ten to Yugoslavia, three to Italy and two to Bulgaria. The first
group was dropped into Yugoslavia in May 1943; the last was dropped
in southern Austria on the last day of the war. Of the 32 volunteers,
twelve were captured. Seven of the twelve were subsequently executed,
including Haviva Reik in
Slovakia and Hannah Senesh in Hungary. The Jewish parachutists succeeded in making contact with
the various national resistance movements in the Balkans, including
Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. Several were active participants in
the Slovak National Uprising. Others succeeded in aiding Allied POWs
in Romania and organizing immigration to Palestine in the immediate
post-liberation period.
The following are pictures of a number of the parachutists:
