By 1940, the Betar movement lost their beloved leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, but continued their activities throughout the war years. They gathered speed after the end of the war despite the destruction of a good proportion of their membership through the decimation of the Holocaust. A general conference was held in Paris in September, 1948, to bring about some better organization of the European Betar movement. We bring here some rare photos gathered by Lea Dror-Batalion.

 

The first evening, Riga, November 1923. a cold autumn night. The leaders of the Zionist Organization in little Latvia are still discussing the advisability of greeting Jabotinsky officially. After all, he had just resigned from the Zionist Organization and was now the opposition. They have sufficient time for discussion, for the first announcement had declared the hour of his arrival to be midnight and now we learn that we may expect him at five o'clock in the morning...

In 1923, the youth movement Betar (Brith Joseph Trumpeldor) was created. The new youth movement aimed at educating its members with a military and nationalistic spirit and Jabotinsky stood at its head.

 Trumpeldor is regarded as a hero of Israel by all. His vision and fortitude secured Israel's northern section. Trumpeldor influenced Jabotinsky with his strong belief in providing to the Jewish people a new idea. Trumpeldor stressed what was needed of jews, rather than what a Jew wanted for himself. "If you need a hammer, I will be a hammer, if you need a nail, I will be the nail" he would say. Jabotinsky realized Trumpeldor was right, and in his honor, Jabotinsky named Betar - B'rith Yosef Trumpeldor.

Shlomo Ben Yosef became a symbol for the Jewish struggle for liberation and freedom. Yet he did not die on a battlefield, but on the gallows of Palestine - the first Jew to receive the death sentence in Eretz Israel for nearly two thousand years.

 

In the winter of 1923 Ze'ev Vladimir Evonovitch Jabotinsky, in the course of a lecture tour of Eastern Europe, visited Riga, Latvia. The organizer of the Jewish Legion in World War I urged the adoption by the Zionists of an activist program. He called for mass immigration to Eretz Israel and to the Jewish youth to "learn to shoot." 

At the first Kinus, or governing convention, Jabotinsky laid down the four principals by which Betar must stand or fall. The principals that were to take the mind of European Jewry by storm, and fire the imagination of Jewish youth as nothing had ever fired it before.

On friday, June 16, 1933, Chaim Arlosoroff, the Histadruth leader, was assassinated while scrolling on the beach of Tel Aviv with his wife. Leading personalties declared that the dying Arlosoroff said his assailants were not Jews. The socialist press, however, immediately exploited the occasion by charging the Revisionists with the murder.

The second World Kinus was help in Cracow in 1935. Never before had the old Polish city witnessed such scenes. The townsmen gaped in bewilderment at the thousands upon thousands of excited young Jews who thronged the streets leading to the conference hall. They came from every corner of Europe. It was four years since the first Kinus in Danzig. There had been fewer of them then.

Autumn, 1938. In Warsaw the 3rd World Conference of Betar is taking place. Thousands have crowded into the Norvitz Hall. Thousands of others have remained in the streets waiting for the arrival of Rosh Betar.

A short while before the opening of the Kinus, a common pride embrace them all. Before your very eyes unfolds an unforgettable scene - Jews of all sections - orthodox, workers, and intelligentsia all have come to greet our leader, and through him the whole of our movement.

The behavior of the Betar's ship cadets during this period when scores of ships went down and hundreds of men drowned was characterized in the marine press as "constituting a chapter in the history of Jewish navigation that future generations will be proud of."

 Not only were Betarim the first to stress the importance to Israel of trained sailors, but they also led the field in aeronautics.

 

 As Hitler came to power in 1933, six million Jews in Europe were facing destruction. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, in passionate pleas, begged European Jewry to get out before it was too late. "Liquidate the Galuth before the Galuth liquidates you" he said. His prophecy was largely ignored, but thousands heeded his warning. A wave of immigrants swept towards Palestine - only to find the gates of the promised land shut against them.

Suggested reading list of Betar and History books. 

 Soldier and early pioneer-settler in Erez Israel whose life efforts to organize the military defense of the Jewish settlements in Erez Israel and whose heroic death in a battle at Tel Hai in the north of the country became an inspirational symbol to pioneering youth from all parts of the Diaspora.