A personal account of an IDF officer in Egyptian captivity during the Yom Kippur War
English version.267pg 26/7/22
This book was lent to me by a friend who worked with the author. Pelusium and Romani were Roman cities once near the Suez Canal.
His parents were old people and he was 28. He was an only child of Holocaust survivors, who first kid had been born premature and died. In Sept. 1940 his one young cousin was killed when Italian planes bombed Tel Aviv, they were meant to bomb Haifa but were intercepted by the RAF and just dropped the bombs on TA.
After the end of the Six Day war in 1967 there was to be 8 UN positions watching on the Israeli side of the canal as peace keepers.
The author was doing a PhD is pharmacology and when he was called into army reserves it was always to be a medic or pharmacist.
There was a shortage of officers who spoke English and so he joined a group that did a 2 day course to be a liaison officer to be posted with UN observers. They have to communicate what is happening on the border and keep the 2 UN officers away from Israeli military secrets.
1973 Oct 6th At 1400 on Yom Kippur day they were bombarded and saw the Egyptian coming to Israel controlled places en masse. He had time to write a note to go with the UN home, destroyed the army radio and codes and was taken by the Egyptians. He was taken across the canal on boat but they pulled a rope get there. He was taken blindfolded to an army base near Port Said.
He and other Israelis were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their back and taken by truck to Cairo but shown on the way to others as spoils of war. The worst thing was the pain in his hand and he was worried he might get gangrene.
Lt. General Ensio Sillasvio from Finland Commanded UNICEF II in Sinai. The Israeli fortifications along the Suez Canal was called the (Haim)Bar Lev line.
At the Abbasiya prison Cairo the interrogators tried to get information about the Israeli army but all he told them was that he was a pharmacist and reservist and sent as a liaison officer because he spoke English he was consistent in this story. At one time he in his cell Dr. Dan Peleg.
The were forced to keep their hand tied and have covers over their face and he managed to take this off but had to slip his hand back into before the jailors entered. Once they were taken to the court yard and forced to get into slimy smelly water trough.
Later a Arab prisoner came around and cut off their beards with a manual clipper. Another time they were taken out to the courtyard and given shaves and haircuts so that they could be photographed, in which he could hardly recognize himself.
They were moved from cell to cell , one cell was full of lice and he spent time killing them until after 17 days they were given permanent cells according to the units they were in and no longer had to wear the handcuffs.. Now he realized that only 4 of the 8 liaison officers were captured later he met a 5th one. One captured pilot did not know what happened to his mate who parachuted with him. Their were days that the guards just came into the cells to beat them up and Michael was always worried he might loose teeth suffer permanent damage. He always escaped this situation by thought of normal life. They were given paper and told to write a letter home, so he wrote a personal family letter just saying that he was well and healthy. This however was never delivered.
1973 Oct 24th Egyptian third army had been surrounded by Israeli troops
After 20 days they were given clean prison uniforms soap to wash, was this an indication that the war was changing? A few days later he was taken to a high class area of Cairo to meet a government official Hussein who wanted to know as much as he could about Israeli society its divisions its education etc. Israeli prisoners were now valuable bargaining chips.
He was interviewed by a Airforce Colonel and was able to tell what he read in the press about weapons but not any more. A pharmacist was sent to check if he really was a pharmacy Phd. student and the head of the Hebrew dept. at Cairo University took the opportunity to talk to him about Hebrew and its literature a thing they both were well informed about..
1973Oct 29th start of Ceasefire talks at Km 101 from Cairo.1973 Nov12 Ceasefire signed.
A Egyptian Minister informed them that a ceasefire had been signed and they would be going home soon. The next day the Red Cross representative informed them that they would start going home by Red Cross Plane. The guy who had interrogated him at the beginning came and said to him "you were Green" he now admitted that was his code name as he had been sending signals to the artillery' where to shoot. Someone else had spilled this information.
When they arrived in Israel first they were taken to be interviewed by intelligence officers to find out about missing airmen. For the first time he learned of the great losses it had cost for the victory and would suffer nightmares as a result he would work to very late and sleep very little. After being at home with family were sent by the army to a holiday resort at Mitvachim near Zichron Ya'acov to recover from the trauma. This program worked for soldiers after battle or after recovery from wounds but nobody had experience of the traumas suffered by prisoners. He had some therapy from Prof. Morris Kleinhaus who pointed out to him that he coped by having a double character in dealing with his tormentors. Some felt guilty if they had released information that had caused harm to their collogues or the military.
He discovered that he was the last person who just kept on sending information about what was happening on the canal and the chief of staff had heard about this. Oscar was the UN observation post nearest to him and his voice disappeared suddenly, he and the 2 UN people had been murdered shot at close range.
1996 A prisoner released from Syria in 1973 Yoav Ben-David wrote a book "Awake at Night" and it showed the Israeli public the terrible conditions that these prisoners had experienced. He went to Miri Shalit of the Dept. of Defense and she wanted to know about his childhood. We now discover that his mother was undergoing treatment for Tuberculosis and he was sent to full time day care and boarding school kindergarten when he eventually came home he had neighbors looking after him till has father came home. Thus as a small child he was always self reliant.
He and his friend are always ready to volunteer help other who need to talk about CSR (Shell Shock) or PTSD
Every therapist who deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should read this book.
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