“A Shocking and Passionate Prayer”

A description by a British officer, eighty years ago (HaTzofeh newspaper, March 9, 1944/ Adar 14, 5704).

Here is a testimony, published in the HaTzofeh newspaper, of a British army officer who returned to Israel from living with partisans for a long period in Yugoslavia. It was published on the 14th of Adar 5704, eighty years ago, and due to the importance of the document, we present the article here in its entirety (in Hebrew) and will then explain the main points.

Thousands of Jews, among them exhausted refugees who had already been in the forests for two years, joined the organized partisan forces and helped them as much as they could. The officer felt that he had seen everything in the war and that nothing would surprise him anymore.

“One day, I was taken to see one of the most spectacular and shocking displays of my life. In my private life in England, I went to synagogue many times and saw and became familiar with the Jewish prayers. However, I have never seen such a prayer like the one I saw in the mountains of Yugoslavia. It was on one of the Jewish holidays. In a grove near a stream among the desolate mountains of Yugoslavia, about two hundred men, young and old, stood and prayed a shocking and passionate prayer.
Most of the officers there carried rifles on their shoulders, and at the entrances of the valley, non-Jewish partisans were stationed on guard for their comrades, to allow them to pray in peace and stay safe from the enemy. The prayer service lasted an hour. The elders in the congregation, including Rabbi Nahlvo (?) read something from the holy books and then almost everyone present burst into tears. The Kaddish prayer at the end of the service was said by all those present almost without exception…”