• Author: Zvi Swet.
• Translated by: Mickey Shachar – Ph.D.
• Published: May 2023.

Zvi’s pathways as a young British Army Commando fighter in WW II take us from the ringing of church bells on VE Day, through the 1940-1945 war years and the grueling campaigns and battlefields of Eritrea, Albania, and Italy. And then, on a perfect, clear, and sunny Spring day on an unimportant patrol on the outskirts of an Italian village in Northern Italy, he stepped on a land mine, and both his legs were amputated. Zvi left his homeland of Poland at the age of 18 and endured the hardships of a sea passage to the coast of Tel Aviv, running the British Blockade against illegal Jewish immigration to then British Mandatory Palestine. At the outbreak of WW II Zvi volunteered to serve in the British Army’s Special Forces to reach Europe and fight the Nazi war machine. Zvi belonged to the “Tip of the Spear” elite warriors who fought on the front lines and behind them in special operations. His physical strength, fortitude of mind, and power of endurance - carried him through the war years and his severe injury. This is his story…