Itzhak Gurion - Triumph on the Gallows

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This edition is published by Valmy Publishing www.pp-publishing.com

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Text originally published in 1950 under the same title.

Valmy Publishing 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TRIUMPH on the GALLOWS

By

ITZHAK GURION

Third Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

To the officers and soldiers of the Irgun who, through their heroism and sacrifices, made possible the liberation of Israel.

To those Americans who recall with pride this countrys fight for independence and therefore lent their sympathetic support to the fighters for the independence of Eretz Israel.

To my beloved wife, Zipora, who more than once saw her husband and children carried off to prison in the middle of the night by British troops, and on the morrow carried on in our absence.

To my children who in the tender years of their lives experienced Bevins UniversityBritish prisons and concentration camps

This book is dedicated.

PROLOGUE

NO one but Itzhak Gurion could have written this book. It took the sensitivity of a poet to describe the martyrdom of those who died so heroically to wrest back the ancient land of Israel from the unclean hands that have held it. Here are the images of these men and the fortitude of their souls. Here also is the picture of the henchmen and the weak-kneed lackeys of the British Government and the whole sordid business of holding a people in thraldom.

In fluent language that seems almost effortless, Gurion describes the last days of his fighting comrades in the death cells of British prisons in Israel, and I, for one, shall never again hear the HATIKVAH without thinking of the men who sang it on the way to the gallowson which they died to make Israel live.

Here is irrefutable proof that the land of Israel would still be a dependence of its former usurpers were it not for the farsightedness and the heroism of those who realized that it could be won back by force, force of character and blood. Two thousand years of cruel oppression died at the end of the rope on which dangled the bodies of Dov Gruner and his fighting friends. If anyone can read Mr. Gurions book without feeling proud of belonging to the people he describes let him remove himself as far as he can from them; let him never again say that he is of the same ancestry.

KONRAD BERCOVICI

FOREWORD

THE achievements of the Jewish Underground in Palestine will never be forgotten either by the Jewish people or the world at large. But the men who heroically sacrificed their lives to make these exploits possible are all too quickly being forgotten.

The men of the Jewish Underground were not ordinary soldiers in a regular army. Nor were they typical of the fighters of other national revolutions. Not only the might of a great empire, but all the malignance which lives in the twisted soul of the ghetto was directed toward crushing them. The land in which they fought was little larger than the State of New Jersey. It was occupied by no less than 100,000 British troops and inhabited by many more Arabs than Jews. The Jewish fighters were faced with the active opposition of the leaders of the Zionist Movement and the so-called official leadership of the Palestine Jewish community. They were hounded and hunted not only by the British and their Arab spies, but also by Jewish collaborators. Theirs was not merely a military uprising but a revolution against the terrible effects which two thousand years of abnormal life had produced in the Jews.

Here then is the story of these men, told by one who was not only their friend but also their comrade-in-arms.

It is a tale which contains elements of the rebellious poetry of Bialik, the joyful music of David, the proud, undefeated tears of Israel itself.

Brit Trumpeldor of America

PREFACE TO SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS

THE enthusiastic reception accorded the first edition of Triumph on the Gallows; the many appreciative letters received by the Memorial Committee and the author; the warm, appreciative comments it has received in the press; and particularly the speed with which the first edition was sold convinced the publisher of the necessity of issuing a second and then a third edition.

The success thus achieved by Triumph on the Gallows, I ascribe entirely to the good will and high esteem which Americans held and continue to hold for the Irgun and all it stood for.

Americans have a great share in the victory of the Irgun . The record of that triumph represents a part of the heritage not only of Israel but of America as well.

The American Memorial Committee for the Hanged Martyrs of Eretz Israel, which aims to establish in Israel a fitting living memorial to the martyred hanged heroes, has undertaken to discharge some responsibility for that heritage. It undertook the publication of Triumph on the Gallows in order that the entire net proceeds, together with all contributions it receives shall be dedicated to that worthy purpose. I am certain that all freedom loving Americans will give the Committee their support and encouragement.

To all those who took their time to write me and offer valuable advice and suggestion, I am deeply thankful.

To Messrs. Samuel Bookspan, Israel Baratz and Elazar Ben Aaron, who were largely responsible for bringing the Committee into being and whose valuable assistance made possible the presentation of Triumph on the Gallows to the American public, I offer thanks in my own name and in behalf of those to whom this book is respectfully dedicated.

I. G.

Rosh Hashana 5711 Sept . 1950

PREFACE

SOON after the publication in the Yiddish press of sections of this book, Brit Trumpeldor of America proposed that it be made available to the American public in its entirety in English translation.

The suggestion appealed to me for many reasons. The American reader ought to come to know those heroic spirits who went to the gallows with supreme fortitude and with the conviction of the champion of freedom, who gives his life for an oppressed people and knows that his hanging constitutes in reality a blow struck against the tyrannical conqueror.

Americans followed with bated breath the development of the Jewish revolt in Palestine during 1944-48. The struggle for Jewish liberation vividly recalled to the American people its own war of independence. There are striking similarities between the two struggles for freedom. The oppressor was the same. British colonial brutalization, hangings and the denial of basic human rights typified both the American and Jewish revolts. The American people saw in the fighters of the Jewish Underground the twentieth-century counterparts of George Washington and Tom Paine. It drew a parallel between Dov Gruner and Nathan Hale, both of whom were captured by the British, tried before military courts and hanged because they dared take up arms to free their countries.

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