Tuvian, Meir

Youth

Born in the family of Vera and Jacob of Tuvan. He graduated from the Jewish gymnasium in Kovno ( Kaunas ). In 1922 he was drafted into the army of the Republic of Lithuania (which at that time was already an independent state). In the army received several awards for successful service. After completing military service, he entered university and became an engineer .

During his studies at the university, Meir joined a group of young people who created an agricultural cooperative based on the kibbutz model, and together with them in the late 1920s moved to Mandatory Palestine , in the settlement of Binyamina ^[1] .

Life in Palestine

In Benjamin, Meir fell ill with malaria and, on the urgent advice of doctors, began to look for a physically easier job. He could not get an engineer, and he joined the British police.

Meir was fired from the police in connection with his refusal to transfer to Haifa , where, as he feared, he would have to act against the Jews. He was arrested on suspicion of killing an Arab and collaborating with the Jewish underground militant organization Hagan , but he was acquitted based on the results of the investigation and trial.

From 1931 to 1934, Meir worked in the technical department of the police radio station, then in a company engaged in the development of Dead Sea salt deposits.

At the beginning of World War II, Meir Tuviansky joined the English army and served until the end of the war in the engineering troops, where he rose to the rank of major .

After the war ended, Meir discharged and joined the British company Mahane Allenby in Jerusalem as an engineer. Then he worked at the Hevrat Hashmal electrical company in Jerusalem.

During the War of Independence, Tuvian formed units for the defense of Jerusalem and dealt with water supply issues. He was appointed commander of the Schneler camp, where food was transported, and also carried out technical supervision of the three airfields.

On June 30, 1948, Meir was summoned to an emergency meeting to be held in Tel Aviv . In fact, no meeting was planned. The call was organized by the head of the Israeli military intelligence "AMAN" Isser Beeri as a measure that allows imperceptibly for the people around him to arrest Tuvan ^[1] .

Arrest and Execution

In the spring of 1948, several water supply facilities in the city were blown up by saboteurs in Jerusalem. Isser Beyer believed that the saboteurs received accurate data on the location of these objects, and conducted an investigation, as a result of which he found out that one of the British officers had a map of such objects.

Tuvian fell under suspicion of transmitting this information and was arrested. During interrogation, he testified that earlier, while serving in the British authorities, he had given the authorities a map of infrastructure facilities, not suspecting anything bad, because the British controlled the city and knew what and where it was located.

On June 30, 1948, near the village of Beit Jizz, four Israeli intelligence officers: Isser Beeri, Benjamin Ghibli , Abraham Kidron and David Karon tried the Tuvan military court , found him guilty of treason and sentenced to death.

Tuvian was shot just a few minutes after the verdict was passed; he was not allowed to not only defend himself and appeal the verdict, but even write a farewell letter to his wife and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion , whom he personally knew. The sentence was carried out by six soldiers of the Harel army brigade , who were not informed who and for what they were shooting ^{[1] [2] [3]} .

Nobody told the wife of Tuvanian Elena what happened to her husband. For some time, she believed that he simply disappeared, and tried to find him by questioning his colleagues and intelligence officers.

When she finally found out that he was shot for treason, she appealed to the head of government through his legal adviser Yaakov Shimson-Shapir with a request to investigate this case. By that time, in addition to this case, Ben-Gurion had other serious complaints against Beeri, for example, the murder of Arab intelligence agent Ali Kassem and the torture of Yehuda Amster, the assistant mayor of Haifa .

The prime minister appointed a commission led by a military prosecutor , who concluded that Tuvan was executed for a crime he did not commit. Beer was sued for abuse of power in this case.

The court found Isser Beer guilty of abuse of authority. Considering Beer’s old merit and special circumstances, the court sentenced him to one day in prison. However, Beeri was not in prison either, as he was pardoned by Israeli President Haim Weizmann .

In July 1949, David Ben-Gurion personally informed the widow of Tuvan about his rehabilitation and brought her his condolences. Meir Tuviansky was buried with military honors, and the family received a pension for him, as a deceased in the line of duty ^[1] .

Tuvian was the first of two people executed by court in the history of Israel. The second was Adolf Eichmann , who led the Gestapo Division IV B 4, who was responsible for the " final solution of the Jewish question ." Eichmann was convicted of war crimes and hanged at Ramle in 1962 ^{[2] [4]} .

After the justification of Meir of Tuvan, Nathan Alterman wrote the poem “The Widow of the Traitor” ( Hebrew אלמנת הבוגד ), in which he “kneels” before the widow of Tuvan, who managed to achieve justice, and also expresses admiration for the country and the head of government who acquitted the innocent, despite all the "strategies" and "considerations" ^[5] .

• Pevzner U., Cherner U. On the shield of David inscribed "Mossad . " - M .: Terra , 2001 .-- 427 p. - (Secret missions). - ISBN 5-275-00303-X .

• Meir Tuvan Memorial Page , Israel Ministry of Defense