remain, along with some equally dilapidated chairs. A board for darts, a game that the British love, is still hanging on the wall. But the darts themselves are missing. In the corner is an old gramophone. I try to get it going, but it emits only an irritating clicking. The atmos-phere is sad enough to make one cry.
* * *
The next morning I am to accompany an Etzel officer in his car to town. He is responsible for organizing rations for his people. When I enter the command center of the battalion I can’t believe my eyes. Joske is sitting there. Eight years ago he was in the same group as me in the Etzel.
"What are you doing here?"
"Yob tvoyu Mat, what about you?"
"I never expected to find you in the Haganah."
"And I didn’t know that you are still with the Etzel..."
"Are you going to keep me under control with that?" he asks me bitterly.
"No, of course not." I leave my rifle with one of my comrades.
We go. At the entrance a man stops us and talks quietly with Joske. Then he turns to me: "That is the battalion commander of the Etzel. Can you help him to get out of here?" I try to find an excuse to refuse. The Palmach people at the gate will check our papers. But actually I don’t care. Joske drives on. We talk. But I feel bad and have the impression that Joske also finds it unpleasant.
"So you became an officer?" I ask.
"Yes. If you had stayed, you might also be in command of a battal-ion." He is trying to be funny.
"And someone else would now be guarding us."
Suddenly it bursts out of him. "You have no idea what was happening here yesterday. The night before last, Palmach people stormed our barracks. We didn’t know what they wanted. They just started shooting in all directions. Some of us tried to break through the barbed wire in a car. They shot two of our men. A girl gave the command..."
"Etzel also had girls who gave orders to kill British men, didn’t they?" "What has that got to do with it?" he answers in amazement. "They were British. But she got the men to shoot at Jews." I have no answer to that and keep quiet.