Curfew 1 - The British once ruled the country

The British mandate does not allow you to go down and play in the yard even if you are a child. What happens when all the children are in the yard and the curfew starts? A convoy of tanks entered Sirkin Street in Haifa and stopped. Without hesitation, a group of children approached the tanks. None of us understood that we were supposed to be afraid and indeed
We were greeted with a shower of candy. I sniffed the road and collected as much as my small pockets could hold.

On our way home, two British soldiers appeared out of nowhere and stomped on us and started chasing us as we ran everywhere. A burst of machine gun fire broke the silence and I pick up my experienced pace into the inner courtyard of our building. I arrived at another entrance of the large building, 'Beit Kharman', which leads to Sirkin Street. The milkman lives in this entrance.

In the large foyer of the stairwell, large milk jugs are scattered where the milkman centers the daily amount he received and prepares the milk to be distributed door to door, each according to his needs. People leave a pot by the door with a note for the required amount and sometimes even the payment. I saw all the containers in front of me, I crawled between them trying to find a hiding place from the pursuers. How much space does the skinny body of a four-year-old need?

My heart used to be loud and surely heard far away. I heard the steps of a soldier who went on and went out of the stairwell to the main street and did not linger near me even for a second. He must have seen my legs sticking out of the milk jug, but he wanted to prevent the first case of a stroke at the age of four. Their intention was not bad, apparently, but to observe the curfew as it was. For many minutes after he left I lay like that without moving, until I got up the courage to come out of my hiding place and go back down to the yard and quickly slipped into our stairwell.

My worried mother greeted me at the entrance. She scolded me for not rushing home as soon as the curfew started. I made a mistake when I tried to calm down with the candies I was given. When she heard their source they turned pale. She emptied my pockets into the trash and expressed concern that they were poisoned. On that occasion I scraped my hand to show caution. False worry, of course, and I lost a supply of sweets, which were a very rare commodity in those days.

Mom has closed the blinds and the exit door is firmly locked. She is in the kitchen and I was sitting in the room, playing and reflecting on the painful loss of so many delicious candies. I was very intrigued as to why mom was opening the blinds like that in the middle of the day. I took an old wooden chair that was used as a small table for games and dragged it to the window and opened the shutter wide, I looked out and saw a huge tank enter our yard and stand in front of the house.

The Cromwell-type tank equipped with a 57mm six-liter gun. The turret began to rotate slowly and I find the muzzle of the cannon a few centimeters away from me. The soldier sitting in the turret laughed at the joke, which I did not understand. I did not know that I was supposed to be frightened by the English joke. I did not understand the difference between a joke I looked into the muzzle of the cannon and my mother started screaming hysterically. I wondered what was so terrible about the barrel of a cannon in the house.

The soldier at the top of the turret managed to smile at me before the shutter was savagely pulled down by my mother pushing me and we both fell to the floor. He had no bad intention, the soldier, but you never know. In addition to the shots that were heard when we were collecting candies, there was a bunch that pierced the head of one of the neighbors down the street of the sun who dared to open the gate of the yard and take a look at the street.