Born: 10 March 1911 in Calvinia, Western Cape, South Africa
- Marilyn Thelma Helfet 1941 - 2018
- Anthony Bernard Helfet 1943 -
- David Leonard Helfet 1947 -
- Timothy Mark 1949 -
- Tessa Nan Helfet 1952 -
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A few days after the April 15th [1948] massacre of the Mount Scopus medical convey on its way to Hadassah Hospital, South African Dr. Arthur Helfet, carrying with him 200 lb weight of surgical instruments was the first doctor to leave from Palmietfontein [South Africa]. Two friends, Doctors Lionel Meltzer and Jack Penn saw him off. They discussed the somber news of the seventy Jews, the majority doctors and professors, having been ambushed and massacred.
Dr. Helfet was no stranger to the Middle East. During World War II, while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he spent a year as Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon to the Middle East Forces with Headquarters in Cairo.
The chartered Dakota in which Dr. Helfet left would take four days to reach Lydda, avoiding Egypt, but it did not work out that way. En route it was learned that the Arabs had fired on a TWA Plane near Lydda. This troubled the pilot. Leaving Wadi Halfa for the final leg of the flight, he announced that the plane would land at Cairo “owing to engine trouble.” When the plane landed on the runway, an agitated agent of the Charter Company came aboard and breathlessly advised all passengers to say, when questioned about their religion, “Church of England.”
Dr. Helfet gave his religion as ‘Reform’. The two officers looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and signed his temporary visa.
The Dakota remained in Cairo for three days before leaving, ostensibly for London, but landed a little later at Lydda, where Dr. Helfet was met by Dr. Chaim Sheba, head of the shadow Army Medical Services. That night at a meeting of all civilian and Haganah sections of the Yishuv he was appointed Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon, that after May 14th changed to an official appointment to all of the Medical Services in Israel. During his first few weeks, the Cape Town doctor visited and examined all Haganah, Irgun and civilian wounded in the Tel Aviv area. Dr. Sheba meantime was searching for beds, basic medical and surgical supplies including kitchen equipment, to equip all the surgical units being formed. A windfall came by way of the Chairman of the Potash Works on the Dead Sea, who allowed the doctors to take over equipment just arrived for a projected convalescent home.
On the day after its capture on April 22, Dr. Helfet was directed to a small Arab hospital in Haifa. An enormous poster of the Mufti of Jerusalem dominated the main hall. On the patients’ beds were horrible Arab propaganda leaflets showing the tortures which it suggested the Jewish forces were likely to inflict on the captured, which explains a lot about the Arab flight and subsequent refugee problem.
In May, Dr. Helfet became attached to Yigal Alon’s Palmach Headquarters at Rosh Pina and also to the new 25-bed hospital at Kfar Giladi in the Northern Galilee. With Alon at that time was the American Colonel Mickey Marcus, who was serving as military adviser to the Haganah and the Palmach. The Palmach’s victories at Safed and Canaan had been relatively light, but Nebi Yusha cost the lives of 28 Palmachniks. “The excessive exuberance of the young Palmachniks trying out captured American-made cars gave us more casualties at that time than the battles”, Dr. Helfet later remarked.
Dr. Helfet prepared a comprehensive report for Dr. Sheba concerning preparations in the event the war would last more than six weeks. In the plan to implement these requirements, he was sent to London on May 28th to enlist the aid of Jewish doctors there.
As a result, Dr. I.C. Michaelson, a leading orthopedic surgeon, Dr. E. Kaplan, a Hebrew-speaking psychiatrist and Dr. Cyril Kaplan, a South African completing his orthopedic training at the time, and several general practitioners were soon on their way to Israel with £25,000 worth of medical and surgical equipment.
Dr. Helfet then left to continue his mission in South Africa. As a result, on June 25th an advance guard of South African doctors and other medical personnel flew into Haifa. This group included Dr. Lionel Meltzer who was soon to be appointed second in command to the illustrious Dr. Sheba of the Military Medical Services, Dr. Louis Miller, Army Psychiatrist, Dr. Jack Wilton, General Surgeon, Saul Theodore Elion, a chemist, Zelda Ravid, a nursing sister, who motivated by a great desire to volunteer for services, left her two very young children (aged 4 and 1) in the care of her mother.
It was a bleak, wet evening towards the end of June 1948.
The plane carrying our doctors' team from South Africa stopped to refuel at a
drab, deserted World War 2 airfield in Athens. Two disconsolate figures were
huddled on a bench, the only people in the airport building. They were Sir Leon
Simon British Postmaster General and author, and Mr. Norman Bentwich K.C., who
had been invited to the new State of Israel, as consultants. Their American
plane had decided not to land at Lydda and had dumped them. It was our
privilege to bring them in our plane.
In Israel, we found that part of Hadassah Gimmel, the old
British Military Hospital, had been allocated to orthopaedic casualties under
Dr. Seideman, a British trained Israeli orthopaedic surgeon. Treatment in the
hospital was competent, but the doctors were overworked and sepsis was a major
problem. Many of the surgeons from parts of Europe under Nazi domination had
been prevented from working in hospitals and had missed the many surgical
lessons of World War 2. The British hospitals in Palestine had also not given
facilities for study or work to local doctors. The few exceptions were
volunteers mobilized into the British Army including Drs. Sheba, Seideman,
Moses and Jebin, Weitzman from France and Fried of Sweden.
Dr. Goldman, a South African orthopaedic surgeon, was in
charge of a hospital in Poriya not far from the Lake of Galilee. He had settled
there before the war and was doing splendid work. Discussion and teaching
improved techniques became an important part of our hospital rounds.
As members of the South African unit increased, it became
essential to have an organized central base. Our efforts were fragmented. After
representation to the Minister of Health, I was taken to see Mr. Ben Gurion who
immediately directed that a floor of the Rambam (Government) hospital and also
the Italian hospital, both in Haifa, should be allocated to our work. It then
became possible to organize admissions, ward rounds, operating sessions and
rehabilitation. Large numbers of patients were admitted and treated.
The Orthopaedic Unit alone did more than 250 major
operations and a comparable number was done by the Plastic Unit. Dr. Penn's two
non-Jewish operating theatre sisters, Benedict and Roux, did a magnificent job,
and added efficiency and quality to the organization. Within two hours of their
arrival at the Rambam, they looked across the bay at the outline of Acre and
asked: "Is that ours?"
The Rambam was a beautiful new hospital, designed by Eric
Mendelsohn (who also designed the Hadassah of Jerusalem) at the waters' edge,
with air conditioning and all modern facilities. Unfortunately in the austerity
conditions, the air conditioning did not work. The windows in the wards could
be opened but not those of the operating theatres. In the Israeli summer
operating in these conditions was indeed "hot work." The staff all
but "streaked", but were able to refresh in the evenings in the
waters of the bay or at nearby Atlit.
The Italian hospital was used for treatment of patients
before and after operation and for non surgical cases: With the arrival of more
South African doctors, physiotherapists and nurses, we instituted
rehabilitation programs which became an important part of the South African
effort. It was possible to link up with a long-term program initiated by an
Israeli specialist in Physical Medicine, Dr. Ernst Simon. Mrs. Lorna Wingate,
wife of Orde Wingate, one of Britain's World War 2 heroes, raised funds for the
physical training school near Tel Aviv which bears her husband's name.
Accommodation in Haifa was a problem solved by the Mayor,
Abba Khushy, and by Yacov Salamon. As Custodians of Arab property, they were
meticulous in their care of abandoned houses and their contents. Every item was
listed and locked away for safe-keeping. A house near the hospital was
allocated to our unit.
Soon a convalescent resort for all wounded was established
in Nahariya, a seaside town north of Haifa. Rounds were carried out there by
members of the Orthopaedic unit one afternoon a week. With either Cyril Kaplan
or Jack Wilton spent each week-end in rotation in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or in the
Galilee. In this way most of the wounded were observed and treatment discussed.
At times individual Israeli surgeons worked with us. It was gratifying to note
the rapid improvement in organization and patient care.
In the months before the Second Truce the spirit in Israel
transcended even that of Britain after Dunkirk. The people were indomitable and
showed a selfless idealism. Miracles were not only possible, but probable. The
terrible trials and losses were borne because there was an overwhelming sense
of big history in the making. The times were biblical with the people close to
faith.
I left in mid-September after six months in Israel. Some
years later the Israeli Ambassador in South Africa called to present me with
the Oth Kommemiot, the Liberation medal.
