Handwritten Notebook - Finance Committee of the Internment Camp for Etzel and Lehi Exiles at Gilgil / Informative ...

Handwritten Notebook - Finance Committee of the Internment Camp for Etzel and Lehi Exiles at Gilgil / Informative Circular Letter on behalf of "LaAsireinu" Organization - 1947-1948
• Handwritten notebook, protocols of the "Finance Committee" meetings in an internment camp for Etzel and Lehi exiles in Africa. [Gilgil, Kenya], December 1947-June 1938.
Detailed records of the committee's discussions. Most meetings concern allocation of money to different aspects of the camp's life: food, cigarettes distribution, activities such as sports or screening of films, and more. Several times the publication of "Sefer HaMa'atzar veHaGalut" is discussed. The notebook ends with records of granting and collecting loans and different invoices.
In the first entry, the names of the committee members are mentioned (it is later noted that the members changed): Yitzchak Kalmi, David Rosenzweig and Menachem Berger (Rosenzweig and Berger were in the first group of exiles - deported in October 1944). Notebook, 21 cm, approx. 30 written pages (most of the notebook's leaves are blank). Good condition. Stains and holes on several leaves. Torn binding.
• "Informative Circular Letter" on behalf of "LaAsireinu, relief society for detainees and prisoners (founded by the Jewish National Council)". April 1948. A printed letter, concerning, among other topics, the return of exiles to Israel. [3] leaves, 28 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains and tears.
In 1944 the British Mandate Authorities in Eretz Israel deported several hundred Etzel and Lehi members to internment camps in Africa. At first they were transferred to Sembel, later on to Carthago, from there back to Sembel, and finally to Gilgil in Kenya, where they were detained until their liberation and return to Israel in July 1948. The notebook presented here contains records of the last six months of Etzel and Lehi members' life in the camps, prior to their liberation.