Latrun. R. 80 Shlomo Shamir TRT: 30:42
Interviewer: “You don’t have force. That’s all. They shoot at you, you have nothing to
answer. People have to be moved you don’t have the transport to move them. People
have to be saved and helped, you don’t have. You just don’t have. So you ask yourself,
now come on if you’re a commander and you don’t have, so what sort of commander is
this? Well, this is what the situation was.” Talk about that. Tell me…it sounds like such
an awful situation to be in.
Shamir: This is true. It makes me laugh now. I may cry. You see, this is the most
crucial, most important point of the war. And this should only be magnified in terms of
the whole Israel and the whole nation. This is, I don’t know how to say it no force, ein
onim. What is ein onim in English? You know? Helpless. Ein onim, there is no force in
you. Helpless is a little bit of a mild expression. In Hebrew there is a much stronger
expression of helplessness or some sort of thing. In other words, you just don’t have,
that’s all. What do you do? If there is something, if there is any message from Latrun
and other Latruns like this is not to be caught in such a terrible moment of helplessness.
This is what goes through you. What can you do? You can only break your heart, you
can collapse, you can do what you can do. You do what you do. You pick up stones, you
fight. You organize something but in a true sense the helplessness is something which I
don’t know that I can explain what it really means, it’s the end of everything.
Helplessness is terrible. It doesn’t… I mean ok we teach people there is never lost hope
unless you decide that hope is lost. Even if a sword the saying says is on your throat
don’t give up or sell your hope, to overcome it, which we teach in terms of reacting in a
position of great difficulty. But it does not reflect the inner knowledge that you don’t
have the force necessary to combat the situation. This is what happened there. How to
express these feelings and to have mutual understanding I don’t know, it has to be a great
poet to give it sense. A whole film, a whole life film goes through your eyes, how come
we are so helpless in a position like this, but this is philosophizing, I don’t know how to
tell you more. What I said there tells the story no force, helpless. I didn’t use the word
“helplessness” because I don’t think it does much more than helplessness. You are
striped of every inch of force in you to react, to fight, to fight better, no hands, no
grenades, no nothing. How can you explain such a thing I don’t know. I only know one
thing. This is the most important message that we have to carry from then all the way
through whenever we have to be in such helplessness. Admittedly, Israel is such, as a
country was never again in such a position. There was position of helplessness in minor
battles but with the implication of that helplessness towards the future that could have
happened is something that never happened again. Thanks God. Ok.
Interviewer: I want to ask you one last thing. We’ve heard that the decision to order the
retreat, that that’s always a very difficult decision. Tell me about that as brigade
commander you had to come to some conclusion roughly 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock in the
morning…
Shamir: 10 o’clock.
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Interviewer: 10 o’clock. You decided based on what you just told me no force what do
you do…I have to pull him back…Tell me about that. What happened and how that
decision affected you.
Shamir: To decide to retreat, it’s one of these things that a commander has to do. It’s
his responsibility. This is a part of your training to make that decision like a decision to
attack where you really make decisions about the lives of many people going forward.
Retreat is another decision of a very major importance in military thinking. It’s very
difficult because it’s mingled with a lot of feelings but it’s also difficult because of the
timing. See, you always question yourself: is it as critical that you have to retreat? I
mean, is it stupid to go on fighting if there is no chance to achieve anything except loss of
life? This is a very complex decision that is not mathematically counted not through the
battle. It is in you and it works through every sense in you. You just feel that this is what
it is, mind you, based on reporting. But if you feel one and two and two you know and
mainly if you know who are the people in front. If you know that they will fight on like
you would fight on and they will not stop. It’s up to you to stop them doing it. This is
your decision. What else can I say? It’s a world of feeling. It doesn’t take a long time.
Once you have come to it, you have to make a decision. Very difficult decision. Very,
very difficult.
Interviewer: You talked earlier in another trip and very emotionally about the legacy of
this. Part of the legacy of the battle wasn’t just having to do with never being this
powerless again but it had to do with something else, something else about survival,
something else about almost the heroism of the battlefield. Can you speak a little more
about why Latrun is such an emotional thing for you and why it means so much?
Shamir: I don’t know. Unless I go into the mystical side, generally of what it means the
inheritance of Israel, generally to us, Jews coming to rebuild their country, how much is it
beyond the formal, rational thinking of ok lets come back and build the land of our own,
protecting ourselves, etc., etc. How much, I think if you see, if tradition, if inheritance has
a much deeper sense that moves people to give their life and fight, alright they fight, they
carry a flag, but behind it, why do people get into the army to fight a war and give their
life. There is no rationale in it. There is something beyond it. So this is the type of
feelings that you take over with you. In other cases where you don’t face the death, you
have to behave. So in that way, my feeling about the struggle at Latrun, which is the
saving of Jerusalem, is of that sense. I truly believe, I think it should make sense. If you
agree that Jerusalem is important, if you think it is a psychological buildup and it’s not so
important and you can live without Jerusalem. In fact, you may say I can live without
Israel. Ok, you can say and we don’t argue. But if you say Jerusalem is important as a
survival point, not you personally but you as part of a bigger group of a nation of a
community that you are part of it. If you say that the siege was important, for 26 days
nothing went into the city which was semi hungry before that. You may say it’s not
important. Jerusalem would have held out another year or so, you may say. But if you
agree to these points so rationally, you may also understand that this was crucial. It
was...there was something you cannot grasp, grabs you as we say, takes you on and we
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believe this is a very, very important battle. Admittedly, wherever people fight and are
ready to give their life against bullets from an enemy, this is a very, very important battle.
But this is somehow narrowed down into a personal ally, into a section ally. Here, other
forces come up into you which bring you away from that thing. You see, I quoted once
what Hoter told me. I didn’t hear it with my ears. Ben Gurion said, “You go through?
Take Latrun. You go to Jerusalem I will cancel the ninth of Av.” What is the ninth of
Av? Mah ze tzom? Mah hu amar? You don’t eat. What is it? Fast. “I’ll cancel the fast
of the ninth of Av.” What is the ninth of Av fast? The ninth of Av fast was the
destruction of a temple 2,500 years ago that every year you go through and remember it.
Is that a true inheritance in you or is it something technical that you read about. He had
the power to voice it. But behind this voicing, actually many people in that brigade and
not only in the brigade I think in the army general, sensed it that this was important.
Technically, the fighting wasn’t near the hills of Latrun but the breakthrough was
somewhere else a way where really it proved the case. But the result was Jerusalem.
There was a battle for Jerusalem. This is the best I can explain to you. I believe that this
should be put into our calendar of future inheritance. This is other people closer
connection with divine. This is the beginning of the third temple. I am not talking in
these terms of a third temple. But if one wants to dream about a symbolically third
temple proposition. This was the third temple proposition. Good one. Didn’t think if an
easier question.
Interviewer: The immigrants had a very special part in this. You been through so many
guys and it was your fault…Was it Ben Gurion’s fault, your fault? Talk about that idea
and why did you stay alive?
Shamir: You see, the myth of the immigrants is a very interesting myth. Because you
see there a myth which is based on roots of a different field. They have nothing to do
with factual things. The fact is in Latrun fifteen new immigrants fell down. Fifteen.
Their names and numbers all appear in my book. They couldn’t be sixteen, they are only
fifteen. There is no argument. If somebody comes and says no there were sixteen. He’ll
have to prove to me because I have all their names. Everyone was recorded. So this is it.
And fifteen out of the 113 and nine that fell in this battle of Latrun is a proportion which
is normal. It so happens that they were brought in because this is the manpower that we
had. After all, there were about 150 of the total new immigration from since January. In
the Latrun battle out of 2000 they were not a major number. They became major
numbers in later wars in Israel. Then we didn’t have enough of them to be there. But I
think, you see, behind it…I think it was very important that they fought there and fell
there because if you talk about what we call brothership and the unity of blood well some
other English names. Same blood as we say. Blood of Abraham that travels through the
veins of the people.
Interviewer: Start the answer over about “I think its very important” because then you
hesitated to think about the right word so just start over and say “I think it is very
important that the new immigrants fought there and fell there” and then go on.
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Shamir: I think that it is very important that they fell there because this is really the
proof that the nation had won. That the nation of brothers won. It is not enough that you
claim the Jews of America are the same as we are here. We belong to the same nation.
Or the Jews in Russia or somewhere else. This is the proof of being in one nation. This
is when it came to the battle. And this is where I think the myth the momentum such a
terrific thing that happened. And I think it was very important. If we would have
doubted including them into the battle, this would have been the worst failure of our
battle for Israel. We would have never excused ourselves for doing it. Admittedly,
people fell and they give their blood but so did everybody...this made them real partners
and I think they are partners. They are not only partners that you ask them come in,
immigrate, bring your money, bring this, bring that. This is the test of life, where you
really fight for your survival. And the fact that it so happened that Latrun came out as a
symbol together with the symbol of what happened towards Jerusalem. And I think that
it binds together very well because many more fell down in the different battles in the
War of Independence. But it is this battle symbolizing the fact that we survived this
critical moment together, a very important point. I can only be happy about it that it so
happened. And in fact, you know many will tell me you know ok you all have your
factual numbers don’t destroy the myth. The myth is important. Because it is important
because it is the flag that carries with it the notice we the Jews that come from abroad
green as we are came here fought with you, this is our war. Mind you, the same with the
Jews in later terms, the Mahal, the experts that came to help us very much in many more
than the immigrants, which is also the symbol of the unity of a nation. What others? The
big argument against us this is, I am going back to the Russian attitude, when we came to
claim a country as a position of a nation, you said what do you mean? You don’t have a
language, you don’t have a country, you don’t have anything, you are not a nation, you
are a philosophy. This is the big discussion also with Toinby(?) also. You are not. If
there is a proof that we are a nation, this is the proof. This is where it lies.
Interviewer: Given how tough the situation was at Latrun, both of the battles, were
there heroes on the battlefield?
Shamir: No question about it. There was no question about it. Not only the two battles,
the breaking of the road. No question. There is a question what do you define a hero.
The hero by definition I believe is a man or a group of people who are really come to the
edge of being ready to give their life to save their unit, their friends, their comrades if
necessary in battle. This is what is heroic. You don’t have more than give your life.
And that is the question; it’s a very instinctive, very difficult operation to do. It’s easy to
talk. There is no question there were heroes there. Unfortunately we could not record
enough. It was a major decision to record enough the heroes of the war of Independence
so because we felt we would never cover it, and we made the decision to give only twelve
such hero of Israel for the whole war.
Interviewer: It seems like with your talking that you did at the beginning that this is the
most important battle in the War of Independence, the saving of Jerusalem, the symbol
etc., saving of the state through that.. With your book, with you sort of having been for
half a century kind of the lightening rod of dissent against the way you feel as well as
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pushing your position that you’ve really kept Latrun alive almost single handedly. If you
had disappeared, been hit by a truck thirty years ago, perhaps this story wouldn’t be as
strong. What is that about, do you think? If you combine the battles and sort of minimize
the cost in the battles for the breaking through of the siege with the road, I think that is
where you get most hammered is yes it was very important but don’t forget that you lost
a lot of people in battles, you know that people question.
Shamir: Let me put it this way: one man is a lot. But 139 out of 6,000 is little. After
all in the battle of Latrun from what we lost in the War of Independence is what is 2%.
This was not a major battle in the sense of losses. There were days during the War of
Independence there were more losses than Latrun. There were single battles that were
more losses than Latrun in a single day. 139 after all of two weeks, these is one battle,
another battle, breaking the group, another group and other losses during different things.
So in terms of losses not important but I think you are raising a more difficult question is
what would have happened if I would have been killed or dead twenty years ago and
wouldn’t have done the research necessary to present the case out of all the rumors:
numbers, names, details, orders, everything. I admit that if this would not have been
done and it was not done for any battle in the wars of Israel. There is no other book like
this, no other investigation like this that went through. If it wasn’t done your question is
a question something would have was brought up by stories. If it would have become the
major battle of Jerusalem, I think yes. Maybe a little bit further on because the War of
Independence requires a focus and there was no other focus. You couldn’t focus it on the
battle for the Negev, neither the Galilee, not even the battle of the Jerusalemites
themselves because the battle for Jerusalem was done by others. This was the Latrun
battle, came the Dani battle, the Dani they claimed that they did the big thing, they took
Ramle and Lydda, they enlarged the road to Jerusalem, made it safer. Ok, this is a part of
it. So something probably would have cropped up. The fact that I had you know divine
gave me the time and energy to put it all into effect. Today, even if I am dead because
the data is put together in a way that you cannot put this aside, it will come out. I
understand Anita’s vision that historiography is beaten by public knowledge and you will
not change the knowledge by presenting your facts. I understand it, there is a lot in what
she says in that but I believe that as a focus of longer time when a lot settles down and we
come to the essentials the battle will gets its position for what it is called for.
Interviewer: Final question: Do we have enough time for it? Ok last general question. I
am not going to go through the specifics. We’ll do that another time or we won’t do it.
People in America ask us, unlike the Jewish Brigade film which was romantic,
sentimental, inspiring, not a known, universal story. They say, well why are you doing
this movie, why should we care about it? We like Israel, we know a little about it but it
seems like an Israeli story. Beyond what you said in the beginning which we’ve already
got on tape, this was about Jerusalem, about the focus of the War of Independence, about
a very, very important thing. What, in sort of the darker alleys of this story and the
darker alleys of country does this story reflect? I mean it seems like this a crossroad of
everything: it’s Palmachniks against Ben Gurion, it’s left and right, it’s immigrants vs.
people who live here, it’s survival vs. no survival, it almost seems that the way Latrun
sits at the crossroads of those roads…what is this, story?
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Shamir: I think all of these, by the way, are marginal. Generally speaking, all these
currents, inner currents making one soup well suddenly they it’s the integration of the
inner currents this against them but what is powerful is the reason for it. You see, to this
very day Jerusalem is a question mark. The American, America doesn’t agree, the senate
agrees, Congress agrees, the president doesn’t agree to move the embassy to Jerusalem,
why? There is still in the books a decision that Jerusalem is international, open city. It is
still very important to the Vatican. It is important for a billion Muslims. It’s super
important for the Jewish nation. So whatever you do, Jerusalem is the diamond which is
a very problematical devil. The story is an international story, I believe it. It is not an
Israeli…I mean it’s not an Israeli story in that sense. Ok, you can focus the difficulties in
Israel on the streams and counter streams and the arguments one against the other. But
all these are I believe with all do respect, are secondary to the real story in that sense that
everybody around the world that knows the existence of Jerusalem and knows a little bit
about the problem of Jerusalem should see how this spot is important in this case for us.
Maybe someone else will do a film about how it was important for the Arabs or for the
Crusaders or something else. I am not dwelling on that one. But this important thing
where the Jewish people in their outlook for Jerusalem and what carries with it. What is
so important is that they were ready to do everything possible to go into a battle, to go
into a contact, not so much into a battle, which had little chance to succeed doing such
things in haste. Why the hell do you do it in two days? Because, as Ben Gurion put it, if
we lose it and it was not sure, we lose the whole business. The battle was on everything,
total. Either or. People may disagree; may say if you would have lost Jerusalem it is not
the end of the world. I don’t know. I think this is the end of many, many years to come.
Maybe another hundred or five hundred or a thousand so in that sense I think that it
relates not to Israelis in fact maybe the Israeli side is not so important to solve whether
the Palmach was important, not important. The Jewish Brigade was carrying it. These
are interesting points to put in life into a story. But if you ask me what is the real, real
thing that is the readiness, the instinct of survival of a renewed born population here, to
fight for a thing that they sense that this is important. Even without knowing all of the
theory. I happened to be present in the United Nations when the discussion took place
what we get from this new division plan. But, generally people, I think they felt it, how
do you explain inner feelings of people, I don’t know. This is what comes into your
instincts. This is the whole business of Israel. This why we have come here. We could
have stayed in Minsk, Pinsk or in New York for that sense. Why the hell did we come
here? It’s not logical.
End of R. 80.
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