Nakam

The Nokmim (הנוקמים), also referred to as The Avengers or the Jewish Avengers, were groups of Jewish assassins that targeted Nazi war criminals with the aim of avenging the Holocaust.^[1]

The groups of Jews – some veterans of the Jewish brigade, and some veterans of the Partisans − were organized after World War II ended. The name refers to Nakam (Dam Yehudi Nakam–"Jewish Blood Will Be Avenged", the acronym DIN means "judgement"), a Jewish organization made up of survivors of the Vilna Ghetto^[2] founded by Abba Kovner in 1945.^{[citation needed]}

The Avengers groups

For many Jews, the end of World War II meant freedom, but some felt a need to seek revenge against Nazis. The soldiers of the second brigade of the Jewish Brigade established the "Executioners Unit". They traveled wearing British uniforms and arrested many Nazis and secretly tried them in an instant field trial. They called themselves "The Avengers". The Avengers included Israel Carmi, Robert Grossman, Dov Goren, Sheike Weinberger, Meir Zorea, Marcel Tubias, Shimon Avidan and others. Meir Zorea used to tell how the Avengers traveled around Europe in groups of three or four. Zorea testified that the Avengers killed only people who were directly involved in killing Jews. Initially, they shot them in the head, but later adopted the method of strangling with their own hands. The Avengers would not reveal anything to their targets before the execution – not who they were nor why they were killing them. They said the killing was like "a killing of an insect".^{[citation needed]}

The 'Nakam' Group

The most extremist group was the Nakam ("vengeance") Group. They numbered around 60 Jews who were former Partisans as well as other Jews who survived the Holocaust. The group arrived in Germany after the war in order to conduct more complicated and fatal vengeance operations. Their ultimate purpose was to execute an operation that would cause a broad international response that would be a warning to anyone who might consider trying to harm Jews again, as the Nazis had. Notables among the Hanakam group were Abba Kovner, Yitzhak Avidav, and Bezalel Michaeli.^{[citation needed]}

Through Chaim Weizmann later President of Israel according to Harmatz,^[2] Kovner obtained from Ephraim and Aharon Katzir a poison. He claimed it was to be used on 3000 loaves of bread for former SS guards, currently in American Prisoner of war camp in "Stalag XIII",^[2] but he was concealing their bigger plan of poisoning the water supplies of Munich, Berlin, Weimar, Nuremberg and Hamburg.^[1] The Nakam group intended to kill 6 million Germans^[2] – as many as the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. According to Harmatz, they would have taken care to exempt American residential areas from the area, so as to murder only Germans as far as possible.^[1] The Katzir brothers supplied Harmatz with the poison and the Haganah gave Kovner false documents of a supposedly Jewish Brigade soldier, and he boarded a ship in Port of Haifa. ^{[citation needed]} When the ship approached Toulon in France, the British discovered that Kovner's papers were forged^{[citation needed]}. His accomplices managed to throw the poison overboard. Kovner was sent to an Egyptian jail.^[2] According to Joseph Harmatz, leader of Nakam after Kovner's arrest, they were betrayed. Although uncertain, he suspects the Zionists sabotaged out of fear that such a crime would diminish support for a Jewish state.^[2]

As a result of the failure of the mass poisoning plan, it was decided to move to Plan B. Under the command of Kovner's deputy, Yitzhak Avidav, the Hanakam group poisoned hundreds of loaves of bread that were designated for the S.S. prisoners.^{[citation needed]}

On April 14, 1946, Nakam painted with diluted arsenic some 3,000 loaves of bread for the 12,000 German POWs from the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg (Stalag XIII). The camp was under US authority.^[1]

1900 German prisoners of war were poisoned in the US camp, and all got "seriously ill".(Associated Press)^[1] According to Harmatz (Nakam leader), 300 to 400 Germans died. He said this "was nothing compared with what we really wanted to do."^[2]

The public prosecutor's office within the higher regional court at Nuremberg stopped the preliminary investigation of attempted murder in May 2000 against two Nakam activists, who professed to have involvement in the incident. The public prosecutor's office cited statute of limitations laws (In German: Verjährung) "due to unusual circumstances" as reasoning for the suspension of the investigation.^[3]

The Avengers in culture

The most detailed document of the Avengers appears in Michael Bar-Zohar's book The Avengers, which was published in 1969. Hanoch Bartov's Novel, "Growing up Pains" of 1969, details the mulling of the Jewish Brigade veterans, who arrived in Germany after World War II ended, mulling over their desire, on one hand, to avenge over the murder of Jews, and on the other hand, how their conscience would not let them harm innocent people. Bartov describes how on the eve of their arrival in Germany, the Jewish Brigade's soldiers were warned that "The blood feud means a feud by all [of the Jewish People];] any irresponsible act might hinder all", and how their conscience got the better of them, and the soldiers as individuals were unwilling and unable to avenge individually.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, the song presenting story about the Avengers, called "Six Million Germans (Nakam)", appeared on the album of Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird - "Partisans & Parasites".

See also

• Tilhas Tizig Gesheften
• Inglourious Basterds
• Tscherim Soobzokov
• Aleksander Laak
• Operation Nemesis

References

Bibliography

• Tom Segev: The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust. 2000, ISBN 0-8050-6660-8
• Jim G. Tobias, Peter Zinke: Jüdische Rache an NS-Tätern . Konkret Literaturverlag 2000, ISBN 3-89458-194-8
• Imré Kovacs, Frédéric Ploquin: Le Vengeur – À la poursuite des criminels nazis, Fayard 2006, ISBN 2-213-62504-2
• Elkins, Michael (1971). Forged In Fury. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-02162-2. 
• Sack, John (1993). An Eye for an Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945. New York, NY: BasicBooks. ISBN 978-0-465-04214-2. 
• Wiesel, Elie (1995). Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea. Knopf. ISBN 0-8052-1028-8. 
• Butler, Rupert (1983). Legions of Death: The Nazi Enslavement of Eastern Europe. London: Hamlyn. 
• Beckman, Morris (1998). The Jewish Brigade. Da Capo Press. ISBN 1-885119-56-9. 
• Cohen, Rich (2000). The Avengers: A Jewish War Story. New York, NY: Knopf. ISBN 0375405461. 

Fiction

• Bar-Zohar, Michael (1969). The Avengers. New York, NY: Hawthorn. 

Further reading

• Sprinzak, Ehud and Zertal, Idith (2000). "Avenging Israeli's Blood (1946)". In Tucker, Jonathan B. Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-20128-3.