Menachem Begin’s Leadership at the Start of the Holocaust
Keywords:
Menachem Begin, Outbreak of World War II, Betar Movement in Poland, Revisionist MovementAbstract
This article discusses Menachem Begin between 1939 and 1941. At the outbreak of WWII, Begin the leader of the Zionist Betar Movement in Poland, joined the large wave of refugees fleeing the advancing German Army. His escape came under scathing criticism in the Revisionist Movement where he was vilified as ‘a captain who abandoned the sinking ship’ and a leader who deserted his troops on the battlefield.
Historians have questioned how Begin eventually managed to erase the blemish of his flight from Warsaw. In this article the author casts new light on the ‘abandoning ship’ episode, claiming that Begin’s image was redeemed because he remained with his people in Vilnius rather than immigrating to Palestine. His arrest by the Soviets and his subsequent expulsion to a gulag added an aura of heroism to his image. The leadership vacuum in the Revisionist Movement in the early 1940s following the deaths of Jabotinsky, David Raziel and Avraham Stern also helped to restore his leadership persona.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 IYUNIM: Multidisciplinary Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise indicated, all articles published in IYUNIM: Multidisciplinary Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Under the terms of this license, users may read, download, copy, distribute, reproduce, and adapt the published material for non-commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author(s), the journal, and the original source, and that any changes made are clearly indicated.
Copyright is held by Iyunim: Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society.
Third-party materials included in an article are not covered by this license unless otherwise indicated. If your intended use is not permitted by applicable law or exceeds the permissions granted by the license, you must obtain permission directly from the copyright holder(s).
