Bir-el Harmat

During the siege of Bir Hakeim, and north of it, was a parallel complementary siege. A little position was defended by a Zionist company composed of 400 volunteers from the Jewish Brigade, and similar events happened, on a minor scale. This company, under the orders of Major Liebmann, was assigned there on May 1941 in the middle of the Libyan desert, without any heavy weapons nor anti-aircraft equipment, to set up minefields to PReVENT an encircling maneuver from the Axis forces.

This position, south of Bir-el Harmat, a dozen of kilometers north-northwest of Bir Hakeim, received on June 2 the visit of a German armored column, and an officer asked for the capitulation of the position. Liebmann refused, and a few hours later, a first Stuka raid bombed his company. Without any specific anti-aircraft defense, they suffered heavy casualties.

The two next days, the position was attacked by the Fiat M13/40 tanks of the Italian Ariete armored division, the same that attacked 5 days earlier, with no effect, Bir Hakeim's fortifications. Several of these tanks were destroyed by the mines barrage; a few tanks reached the center of the position, and the light-equipped volunteers had no other choices but to repulse them using Molotov cocktails.

They had no radio contacts with the other allied forces, but they turned to resist as relentlessly as the Free French Forces of Bir Hakeim did. The Axis armored forces attacked the position the June 5 and June 6, but the attacks were very ineffective since the defenders were hidden in personal dug holes; from the June 7, the armored divisions stopped attacking, and the position was bombed daily both by Stukas and by German artillery. Their well was bombed, but despite deprivation of water, the company did not surrender.

On June 10, the British campaign headquarters of the British 8 Army issued a retreat order for both this position and Bir Hakeim's. The Jewish company lost 75% of its men contributing, along with the Free French, to delay Rommel's offensive for 10 days (16 days of siege for Bir Hakeim).

Liebmann and his hundred surviving men abandoned their position on the 11th, rejoining during the night at Gasr-el-Abid the French and British forces. Yet, on June 11 morning, General Marie Pierre Koenig, in charge of Bir Hakeim fort, not even knowing AbOUT the Jewish presence in the surroundings, discovered with surprise that friendly unit which shared the same destiny as 1st Free French Division's. In perfect French, Major Liebmann told him that his men and himself were fighters from Palestine, but that they could not serve under their flag because of British rules. Koenig then told him to raise their Star of David flag, and all Free French officers around him saluted it.

Erwin Rommel, commanding the Afrika Korps in the battle, received an order from [...] to execute Jews who were taken prisoner. But Rommel, who wasn't a [...] Party member, and in fact had no love or liking for the [...] Party, neither believed in their racist ideology nor had any personal anti-Jewish feelings (Fritz Bayerlein, a friend and fellow general of Rommel's, had some Jewish blood), and disobeyed [...]'s order. He also disobeyed other such orders, such as the Commando Order, which called for the execution of captured commandos or men dressed as commandos, and an order to shoot Free French prisoners. Furthermore, he made no differentiation between Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners and treated them with respect. During the war, he wrote several letters protesting the persecution of the Jews. Rommel was later murdered on [...]'s orders for having taken part in the July 20 Plot, the failed attempt to assasinate the dictator and depose the [...] regime. Rommel was one of the few Wehrmacht (German Army) commanders not involved in war crimes.

The Jewish Brigade fought in the British Army until the end of the war. It fought in Greece, North Africa, East Africa, and Italy. They were brave soldiers. After the war, they played a key role in the Berihah's efforts to help Jews get to Palestine. 30,000 Palestinian Jews fought in the British Army against the Germans. The Jewish Brigade will always be remembered as a unit of heroes.

See also

• Battle of Bir Hakeim

Bibliography

• François Milles, Des juifs dans le Désert, in Les combats d’Israël, collection of Joseph Kessel, in Combats de l’Histoire, n°275, Tallandier, Paris 1973.

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