Thread by @lennybendavid

With #YomHaShoah tonight, recall what the Turks did to the Armenians AND the near massacre of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael.
16,000 Jews of Jaffa-Tel Aviv were expelled in 1917 on the eve of Passover. 20% died from hunger & disease.
Below: grave marker over 224 dead in Kfar Saba 1/

Why didn't the Turks unleash a genocide or mass expulsion of all Jews in WW1? The British army was pushing out of Sinai into Palestine, & the Turks saw the Jews as traitors. Some Jews exiled in 1914 fought w the British at Gallipoli.

What saved the Jews? 2 German generals. 2/

Two German generals - commanders in Palestine of Turkish-German forces - refused the Turkish pashas' orders to expell the Jews of Palestine. They were backed by German diplomats contacted by Vatican sources.
1st: Gen. Kress van Kressenstein
2nd: Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn
WHY? 3/

4/ Sources for the two Generals' actions come from historians, Jewish leadership at the time, & Vatican sources. Full citations in my book (one day): "Secrets of WWI in the Holy Land."
Meanwhile see comments below.

5/ I asked Falkenhayn's biographer why no one knew of his actions.
"Can you imagine anyone in Germany after WWI being proud of a general who SAVED Jews?" he answered.

And there was on more crucial answer I discovered.

6/ This pic shows Falkenhayn at the Jerusalem railroad station with his daughter Erika and the Turkish leader Jamal (Cemal) Pasha in 1917.
The Turks demanded Falkenhayn's recall b/c he refused to battle the British in the Holy City of "Jerusalem."

BUT ERIKA is important today.

7/End
Erika wraps it all up on #HolocaustRemembrance Day.

In 1926, Erika married a German officer, Henning von Tresckow, who rose through the ranks. A general in 1944, he was part of the plot to kill Hitler. He "committed suicide" in June 1944. Erika & her kids were arrested.