Raquela by Ruth Gruber Page A

Prove to Mama and Papa they were wrong about nursing .
    Mama’s angry words still pounded in her ears.
    â€œBut Mama,” she had held out. “It’s my way of fighting the war.”
    But how, living in Jerusalem, did one fight this war? Raquela had been caught, as were most Jews in Palestine, in a terrible dilemma.
    In Europe, when the war broke out in 1939, England had been magnificent. She had been alone, saving Western civilization, her back against the wall, her cities bombed and burning, holding off Hitler’s hordes.
    France had collapsed. Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg had been over-run. Mussolini had joined forces with Hitler. Denmark fell, then Norway. The list seemed endless. The United States had not yet entered the war. And Hitler was confiscating the manpower, the factories, and the resources for his war machine from all the countries he had conquered.
    The gallant British had to be helped by every able-bodied Jewish man and woman in Palestine.
    Yet in Palestine itself, the hated White Paper, drastically restricting Jewish immigration, had become the law of the land. The name itself, White Paper , became the enemy, and the Haganah fought it like an enemy.
    To save Jews who could still escape from countries Hitler had not yet swallowed—the eastern half of Poland, Hungary, Romania—the Haganah organized shiploads with hundreds of immigrants and beached them, under cover of night, on the coasts of Palestine. Safe at last from Hitler.
    But the White Paper declared Jews “illegal.” Incredibly, the British diverted sorely needed troops and patrol boats to halt the “illegals.” It was an enigma. Britain was fighting on two fronts—the war against Hitler, in Europe, and the war Churchill later called the “sordid” war against the Jews, in Palestine.
    The Jews were caught in a death struggle. Should they, too, fight on two fronts? With the British in Europe; against the British in Palestine?
    David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Zionist Executive, solved the dilemma: “We shall fight the war as if there were no White Paper and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war.”
    Jacob and Yair, with tens of thousands of others, men and women, rushed to join the British forces to fight the Nazis.
    But still the British tried to be “neutral.”
    Desperate for manpower, they agreed to let the Jews join—men in the regular forces and the RAF (Royal Air Force), women in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service)—provided that for each Jewish volunteer there would be an Arab volunteer. One hundred thirty thousand Jewish men and women of military age volunteered. But so few Arabs came forward that in the end, until December, 1941, when the United States entered the war, the only allies the British Commonwealth had in the Middle East were the Jewish men and women of Palestine.
    Mrs. Simonson was talking. “Miss Levy.” She seemed aware Raquela’s mind had wandered. “You may receive men visitors here in the lounge. No men are allowed above this first floor. And they must leave early. All lights in the dormitory must be out at ten P.M. And windows drawn with black muslin curtains for the blackout. Ah, here is your ‘mother.’”
    The door opened. Raquela looked up at a slender young woman in a blue and white student uniform, with a starched white cowl hiding her hair.
    â€œI’m Judith Steiner.” She extended a firm hand. “I’ll show you your room.”
    Raquela gathered her coat and suitcase and followed her.
    She’s a third-year student, Raquela thought; that means she’s two years older than I. But she seems old—really old. Why?
    They were walking down a broad white corridor lighted by a bank of windows; green ferns spilled to the floor; miniature palm trees rose out of ceramic pots; ivy trailed up to the ceiling. Outside the snow fell on the garden; but the corridor was warm and