Irgun Prison Archive: Rescue Appeal Letter, Children's Detention Booklets & Post-War Correspondence — British Mandate Palestine & Early Israel, c. 1946–1951. A deeply moving and historically important group of original materials documenting Jewish underground resistance, imprisonment, and post-war survival during the final years of the British Mandate in Palestine. This archive centers on an extraordinary handwritten appeal letter addressed to the Chief Rabbi, written during the crisis surrounding the British executions of Avshalom Haviv and Meir Nakar in 1946, two Irgun fighters condemned by British authorities following the Acre Prison break. The letter pleads for religious and communal intervention on behalf of the condemned, expressing urgent appeals for mercy and solidarity through the Chief Rabbinate in an attempt to halt the executions. The letter is housed in an elaborate embossed leather or faux-leather album with a raised central relief depicting a Jewish worker figure beneath Hebrew script.
Also included are two surviving children's handmade booklets, created by Jewish prisoners or detainees, likely post-war or immediate post-Mandate. These fragile notebooks are filled with hand-drawn illustrations, flowers, homes, Hebrew writing exercises, and childlike verses expressing hope, memory, and survival following imprisonment.
Completing the group is an original postcard sent from Amsterdam to Israel in 1951. The card was mailed from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and bears contemporary Israeli postal routing together with handwritten Hebrew correspondence inside.
Estimated Value $200 - 300
Judaica
