Yoel Palgi (; born Emil Nussbacher 1918–1978) was a Palmach parachutist who was dropped by Britain into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust and RAF pilots captured by the Germans.
Early life
Palgi was born in Cluj, Austria-Hungary (now in Romania) in 1918. In 1939, he made aliyah and joined Kibbutz Afikim in Mandatory Palestine.
Operation background
The Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine had attempted one operation earlier in Romania to provide succour to Jews threatened by the Nazi Holocaust by thwarting their deportation to concentration camps, but it had been compromised, and the two agents dispatched, Arye Fichman of Kibbutz Beit Oren and Liova Gukowsky (Ahisar) Kibbutz Yagur, were captured because the foreign contacts used were often triple or quadruple agents who were German officers who would pass on the details of these kinds of operation. The failure rate of Allied operations to penetrate into that country was high, and it was decided to focus efforts on gaining a toehold in Yugoslavia instead.
Preparations
Palgi had joined the Palmach, the strike force of Haganah and underground army of the Jewish community in Palestine, in 1942. In the following year, he volunteered, together with , to partake in another Yishuv operation into German-occupied Europe. Both Palgi and Goldstein were members of the Ma'agan community, a group of Hungarians formed around the area of the Sea of Galilee, and Goldstein, like Palgi, had also been born in Cluj. The group were required to enlist in the British army and underwent training in Ramat David and Cairo, and, after completing their course, were issued with weapons, silk maps and cyanide pills. Two further measures were taken: they were promoted to officer rank in order to endow them with a certain status if captured, and, secondly, they underwrote insurance policies which, if they were killed, would ensure that their kibbutzim would be compensated for their sacrifice. There was also a personal dimension for many of those who volunteered. Palgi's family was still behind enemy lines in Cluj. Such anxieties were soon to be exacerbated by news that in March Germany had invaded Hungary.
The mission launched
The volunteers were split into two groups, with one, consisting of Hannah Szenes, Abba Berdiczew, Reuven Dafni and a Ma'agan member, , parachuting into the north of Yugoslavia on 14 March. Palgi's group were flown to Bari where they met up with Enzo Sereni. They were scheduled to make their drop on the first night of Passover, 7 April 1944, which meant preparing for a seder even as they were flying over enemy territory, but adverse weather conditions delayed their departure, and they eventually parachuted into Croatia a week later, on 13 April, dropping into an area generally under the control of Tito's communist partisans.
They met up with, and attached themselves to, the partisan army's 6th Corps in the Papuk Mountains. The German occupation of Hungary forced changes in their plan, rendering the task of infiltration and carrying out their work even more hazardous. In the meantime the two groups were united on 6 May. They spent some time with the partisans, engaging in guerilla warfare, sabotage activities and the securing of escape lines for Allied airmen, while worrying that they were unable to implement the real purpose of their mission, helping Jews escape the harrying plight they were being subjected to in Hungary. Hannah Szenes was particularly disturbed by news leaking out from Hungary, and, together with Reuven Dafni, snuck over the border in late May, having prearranged with Palgi to meet up either before the Dohány Street Synagogue or, failing that, the city's main cathedral. Eventually Palgi and Goldstein managed to cross over into Hungary via the Drava River with the assistance of smugglers, on 19 June, some ten days after Szenes' capture and unaware of her fate.