Historical Background and Interviews
III. A New Beginning A New Beginning
the kibbutz and began to recruit for the Haganah underground. On weekends and evenings, men and women, boys and girls secretly practiced combat skills and defense tactics. Like the other Jews in Palestine, they had few weapons and al- most no ammunition. The Haganah, however, was using its con- nections in Europe to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the Mandate. According to Abraham Shapira, who joined the kibbutz in the 1930s, many of these weapons were stolen from European armies. At first, he wrote, it was mostly pistols, smuggled inside tourists’ suitcases, packages, and cement barrels; later, it included rifles, machine guns, and submachine guns hidden in steamrollers, lathes, and tractor wheels. At Yagur, bunkers were built into double-walled houses and cellars were dug for hiding weapons and ammunition. When the British sealed off the port of Jaffa, until then the main port of en - try for smuggled weapons, Haifa took its place and nearby Yagur became the largest arms warehouse for the Haganah. Meanwhile, Arab leader Fawzi al Qawukji was organizing local combat units, and on April 5, 1931, the units waylaid three Yagur members and murdered them. Eventually, some members of Yagur volunteered to protect smaller settlements in the Mandate, possibly with sup- port from the Special Night Squads or Fosh. Thus, Yagur’s members were involved in numerous activities: developing combat skills; helping in the defense of other settle- ments; nurturing the land and increasing Yagur’s agricultural yield; creating a manufacturing plant; doing outside paid work; and hid- ing arms for the Haganah. Also, during World War II, they joined the Star of David (Jewish) Brigade, and several members were killed in service, including one who died parachuting into Nazi-oc- cupied Italy. And there was more: As part of the Jewish Resistance move- ment, Yagur members were helping to bring legal and illegal Jew- ish refugees to Palestine and get them settled. On October 10, 1945, members of Yagur and nearby kibbutzim liberated 208 Holocaust survivors being held indefinitely by the British in a center at nearby
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