Grandma's army

  In the central building in Marnevski square in Warsaw, where tens of Jews were barricaded, the Zionist flag was raised. [It eventually became the national flag of Israel]. A heroic battle took part against the Nazi troops who had burst into the ghetto, and in which over 60 Jewish fighters were completely wiped out. The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest and most heroic act of armed resistance taken up by the Jews during WWII. It was also the first civic uprising in the whole of occupied Europe - apart from being one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people. Ask any Israeli who was the leader and hero of the Warsaw Uprising and he/she will invariably reply, “ Mordechai Anilewicz ”. One of the biggest kibbutzim in Israel, Yad Mordechai, complete with a gigantic bronze statue of Mordechai Anilewicz , was founded in his name.                             ...

  Born in 1916, Alex Zioni was a member of the Haganah in his youth. When WWII broke out, Alex volunteered for the British Royal Airforce, where he eventually attained the rank of Major. In November 1947, he was appointed, in secret, as the Chief of Staff of the “air service” of the Haganah. Not for nothing was Alex considered the founding father of the Israeli Airforce. He invested all his time and energy in his new job and worked towards a detailed programme of how the future Airforce would function - from the minute the new state would arise. From the beginning of 1948, the military situation in Israel was desperate. The “air service” was in its early stages and consisted of only a few light planes. The British were busy withdrawing their army and armaments from the Yishuv (Jewish Palestine). Amongst the surplus military equipment they were auctioning off, were 20 wrecked, one-engine light planes, called Austers. Early in January 1948, a light plane from the Israeli airfor...