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Postwar, Two Brothers, Survivors from Transnistria
Yad Vashem Archives, 156fO4
From the Memoirs of Menachem Meir:
“On October 6th, 1948, in the early morning hours, after a journey of several days in the stormy Mediterranean Sea, the “Azmaut” [“Independence”] immigrant ship lay anchor at Haifa Port. It was the day after Rosh Hashana, the festival of the new year. It felt like I was dreaming.
With dawn, I stood on deck with 1,050 other immigrants. We all gazed at the coast we were reaching, and at Mount Carmel growing taller as we drew near. We looked on, full of hope and expectation towards reaching the promised land. I felt I had reached home. I was sixteen…”“…The Declaration of Independence had taken place five months previously. The armies of the Arab countries had already invaded. The War of Independence was raging in full force. I wanted to be part if this historic event from its beginning, or at least from the earliest moment I could join it. I did not have a brother, a relative or a friend. I was alone, but not lonely. I wanted to enlist to the Israel Defense Forces. As soon as I arrived at the port, I turned to the first Israeli officer I saw and asked him how I enlist. He looked at me from above and said, “but you’re only sixteen.”
(Menachem Meir and Frederik Reimes, Do the Trees Blossom There? [Hebrew], Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2000, p. 141)
In the photograph we see boys – brothers – who had emigrated from Romania. A large part of the survivors arrived in pre-state Israel alone, as Menachem Meir says. Young Menachem wanted to enlist to the army, until a policeman told him he was too young. Why do you think he was so determined to join the army?