Yaakov Weiss was born on July 15 1924 in
Czechoslovakia. When the Nazis invaded, he escaped to
Hungary and posed as a German officer in order to free Jews from Nazi prisons. In 1943, Weiss traveled to the
Land of Israel aboard an illegal immigrant ship that was intercepted by a British blockade set up to prevent Jewish immigration. Weiss and the other passengers were interned at the Atlit detention camp for several months. After being freed in a Palmach raid on October 9 1945, Weiss moved to Netanya and was soon recruited into the Irgun Zvai Leumi’s combat unit.
The Acre fortress was a Crusader citadel restored by the Turks and considered impregnable. Even the legendary Napoleon had failed in his two month effort to take it by siege. Under British rule, the place served as a maximum security prison where Jewish underground fighters were jailed and executions carried out. The prison was the most highly guarded fortress in the country, surrounded by thick walls and a deep moat. On May 4 1947, the Irgun launched an attack on Acre, freeing twenty of their comrades and seven Lehi fighters. Despite the heavy toll in human lives, the action was described by foreign journalists as the “greatest jail break in history” while military circles around the world described it as a “strategic masterpiece.” British prestige was greatly damaged and many began questioning the future of their rule over the country.
During the operation, Yaakov Weiss was assigned to the covering unit, along with Meir Nakar and Avshalom Haviv. Following the escape, British soldiers succeeded in capturing the three. The trial opened on May 28 and the fighters were sentenced to death on June 16. At the trial, Weiss challenged his foreign judges, stating: “Your very presence here, against which everyone protests, is illegal. This land is ours from time immemorial and for ever more. What do you, British officers, have to do with our homeland? Who appointed you rulers of an ancient and freedom-loving nation?”
The Irgun kidnapped two British sergeants in Netanya and threatened to execute them if Weiss and his comrades mounted the gallows. The British decided to call the Irgun’s bluff and on July 29, Yaakov Weiss, Meir Nakar and Avshalom Haviv were hanged at the Acre prison. All three mounted the gallows with dignity and all three sang HaTikva before their death.
After the execution of the three freedom fighters, the Irgun hanged the two British sergeants in a forest. A large outcry went up from the people of England demanding that their soldiers be brought home and that their government end its occupation of Palestine. The British never again executed Hebrew fighters and in less than one year they had withdrawn their forces from the country. The London Sunday Times would later write the following: “If any one event forced us to leave Israel and permit the Jews to create a Jewish state, it was the defiant resistance of these young Jews who were led to the gallows. It may be said that after two thousand years, the Jewish state rose again on the broken necks of those who mounted the gallows.”
Yaakov Weiss was born on July 15 1924 in 