Beschreibung:

Passover Haggadah. Published by the festivities committee, Palestine General Transport Coy 650. Italy, 1944. A non-traditional Haggadah with illustrations, printed for Jewish soldiers who served in the Transport Company 650 of the British Army in Italy, in World War II. Alongside passages of the traditional text, appear prose and poems about the war, the persecution of the Jewish people, fighting in Europe, the struggle against the British, and the hope for revival in Palestine. The Haggadah opens, following the Kidush and songs, with an introduction focusing on commemorating the victims and the Ghetto rebellions, the Partisans and Stalingrad fighters, and the struggle against the "White Book", and it ends with the passage: "On this continent where we were among the first occupiers and defeaters of a tyrant regime as part of the fifth camp – a Jewish military entity was formed, pioneer of Palestinian volunteers who only wished to eliminate the enemy of nations and expedite the redemption of the people in its land of hope". The Haggadah ends with "HaTikva". The text is accompanied by illustrations, part of which relate to the traditional Haggadah and part of which are contemporary – agriculture, settlement, fighting and the longed-for defeat of the Nazis. On the cover appears the emblem of the unit – a Star of David with hands in it, pointing at the hour 6:50 - the unit's number. 37 pp (mispagination), 20.5X15.5 cm. Non-uniform page size. A number of pages trimmed with some small loss. Creases. Some stains. Small tears to margins of leaves. Nylon cover. Not in NLI and not listed in Aviram Paz's book, "Exodus from Egypt in Days of Yore, in Recent Times, Selection of Rare Passover Haggadahs from the 1940s…" (Kibbutz Dalia, 2015). Provenance: Rimon Family Collection.