Dov Gruner
Encyclopedia
Dov Gruner was a Jewish Zionist leader born in Kisvárda
Kisvárda
Kisvárda is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. , the town has around 17,000 inhabitants.-History:Kisvárda was known in the Middle Ages as Warda or Warada...

, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 on December 6, 1912. On April 19, 1947, he was executed by the British Mandatory authorities in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 on the charge of "firing on policemen, and setting explosive charges with the intent of killing personnel on His Majesty's service" in respect of his role in the pre-state Jewish underground known as the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...

.

Early life

Bela Gruner (later Dov Gruner) was born to a religious family in Kisvárda
Kisvárda
Kisvárda is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. , the town has around 17,000 inhabitants.-History:Kisvárda was known in the Middle Ages as Warda or Warada...

, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, where he attended a yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

. He later studied engineering in Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...

. In 1938 he joined the Zionist youth movement Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...

, who arranged his passage to Palestine in 1940 aboard the illegal immigrant ship S.S. Skaria.

After spending six months in the Atlit detainee camp
Atlit detainee camp
The Atlit detainee camp was a detention camp established by the British at the end of the 1930s on what is now Israel's northern coast south of Haifa. The camp was established to prevent Jewish refugees, mainly Holocaust survivors, from entering then-Palestine...

 for his illegal entry
Illegal entry
Illegal entry is the act of foreign nationals arriving in or crossing the borders into a country in violation of its immigration law.Migrants from nations that do not have automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally in some areas like...

 into Palestine to escape the Nazis, he joined the Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...

 movement in Rosh Pina and became a member of the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...

. In 1941, he joined the British army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 in order to join in their effort against the Nazi enemy, and together with his comrades in the Jewish Brigade
Jewish Brigade
The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...

 came to the aid of Holocaust survivors in Europe.

Irgun activities

After Gruner's demobilization from the army, in March 1946, he resumed his activity on behalf of the Irgun and joined its fighting force. While still on demobilization leave, he took part in an Irgun operation against an occupational military target to gain access to weapons from a British army depot near Netanya
Netanya
Netanya is a city in the Northern Centre District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate Institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.Its of beaches have made the...

. Ten days later he participated in his second and final operation on behalf of the Irgun - the attack on a Ramat Gan police station. He was severely wounded and initially denied medical treatment. While in prison, he became close with some of his guards, who changed their views after meeting him.

When brought before the court and asked whether he admitted guilt he replied:

I do not recognize your authority to try me. This court has no legal foundation, since it was appointed by a regime without legal foundation.



You came to Palestine because of the commitment you undertook at the behest of all the nations of the world to rectify the greatest wrong caused to any nation in the history of mankind, namely the expulsion of Israel from their land, which transformed them into victims of persecution and incessant slaughter throughout the world. It was this commitment - and this commitment alone - which constituted the legal and moral basis for your presence in this country. But you betrayed it wilfully, brutally and with satanic cunning. You turned your commitment into a mere scrap of paper...



When the prevailing government in any country is not legal, when it becomes a regime of oppression and tyranny, it is the right of its citizens - more than that, it is their duty - to fight this regime and to topple it. This is what Jewish youth are doing and will continue to do until you quit this land, and hand it over to its rightful owners: the Jewish people. For you should know this: there is no power in the world which can sever the tie between the Jewish people and their one and only land. Whosoever tries to sever it - his hand will be cut off and the curse of God will rest on him for ever.

Death sentence

Refusing to partake in his own defense and refusing to co-operate with counsel he was said to have been offered a commutation on the condition that he admit guilt. He refused to do so and was given an uncommuted death sentence.

Despite the maximum security of his prison situation, Gruner maintained an irregular correspondence with Irgun headquarters. Among the correspondence between Gruner and headquarters were: His refusal of Irgun assistance with legal counsel (owing to his principled stand regarding non-cooperation with the British court system in Eretz Yisrael), his query whether he should commit suicide in order to make a political statement (the Irgun leadership quickly responded against the initiative) and most famously, what's believed to have been his final letter, shortly before he was to be hanged.

It was addressed to the Commander in Chief of the Irgun, Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...

 and it read:


Sir,



From the bottom of my heart I thank you for the encouragement which you have given me during these fateful days. Be assured that whatever happens I shall not forget the principles of pride, generosity and firmness. I shall know how to uphold my honour, the honour of a Jewish soldier and fighter.



I could have written in high-sounding phrases something like the old Roman "Duce est pro patria mori
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace's Odes . The line can be roughly translated into English as: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."-Context:...

", but words are cheap, and sceptics can say 'After all, he had no choice'. And they might even be right. Of course I want to live: who does not? But what pains me, now that the end is so near, is mainly the awareness that I have not succeeded in achieving enough. I too could have said: 'Let the future take care of the future' and meanwhile enjoyed life and be contented with the job I was promised on my demobilization. I could even have left the country altogether for a safer life in America, but this would not have satisfied me either as a Jew or as a Zionist.



There are many schools of thought as to how a Jew should choose his way of life. One way is that of the assimilationists who have renounced their Jewishness. There is also another way, the way of those who call themselves 'Zionists' - the way of negotiation and compromise, as if the existence of a nation were nothing but another transaction. They are not prepared to make any sacrifice, and therefore they have to make concessions and accept compromises.



Perhaps this is indeed a means of delaying the end but, in the final analysis, it leads to the ghetto. And let us not forget this: in the ghetto of Warsaw alone, too, there were five hundred thousand Jews.



The only way that seems, to my mind, to be right, is the way of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the way of courage and daring without renouncing a single inch of our homeland. When political negations prove futile, one must be prepared to fight for our homeland and our freedom. Without them the very existence of our nation is jeopardized, so fight we must with all possible means. This is the only way left to our people in their hour of decision: to stand on our rights, to be ready to fight, even if for some of us this way leads to the gallows. For it is a law of history that only with blood shall a country be redeemed.



I am writing this while awaiting the hangman. This is not a moment at which I can lie, and I swear that if I had to begin my life anew I would have chosen the exact same path, regardless of the consequences for myself.



Your faithful soldier, Dov.


Despite claims that Gruner was a Prisoner of War
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

 and was thus entitled to special rights, he was hanged at Acre
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

 prison on April 19, 1947, at the age of 35. Executed together with him were his Irgun colleagues Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi and Eliezer Kashani.

Commemoration

Moshav
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...

 Misgav Dov
Misgav Dov
Misgav Dov is a moshav near Gedera in the coastal plain of south-central Israel. It belongs to the Gederot Regional Council. It is named after Dov Gruner, a member of the Irgun....

, founded in 1950, is named after Gruner. Several streets in Israel, including one in the Armon HaNetziv neighborhood of Jerusalem, also bear his name. In 1954 the plaza in front of the Ramat Gan Police station was renamed "Gruner Square". A monument commemorating Gruner and the three Irgun members killed in the attack on the station was constructed at the site. The monument features a sculpture by Chana Orloff
Chana Orloff
-Biography:Chana Orloff was born in Ukraine. She immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1905 and settled in Jaffa, where she found a job as a cutter and seamstress. Zvi Nishri , the pioneer in physical education in Israel, was her brother....

, depicting a young lion cub, representing the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...

, fighting a mature lion symbolizing the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. The monument also bears a plaque commemorates all Olei Hagardom
Olei Hagardom
Olei Hagardom refers to members of the pre-state Jewish underground who were tried in British Mandate courts and sentenced to death by hanging, most of them in Acre prison...

, Jewish pre-independence fighters executed by Ottoman and British authorities.

During the period 1950 to about 1956 in South Shore, then a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, an AZA (Jewish boys club) was named after Gruner. This club won the Chicago AZA city championship in touch football, and was very popular in the high school social life of that neighborhood.

External links

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