The Museum of The Underground Prisoner

During the Chanukah break I took the kids to another fascinating place that I'd like to tell you about. Okay, so I am a little bit late posting these pictures, but it was really very interesting and definitely worth a short write-up here.

The Museum of The Underground Prisoner is hidden away in the Russian Compound, one of the oldest districts in central Jerusalem. The long, low stone building was initially constructed in the 1800's as lodging for Russian women. During the period of the British Mandate it was converted into a prison for those deemed a threat by the Mandatory government, particularly members of the pre-state Jewish underground militias – the Hagana, the Irgun (also know as the Etzel group) and the Lechi – who were imprisoned for crimes ranging from helping to smuggle in Jewish immigrants from Nazi Europe to terror and assassinations.

The prison's most famous episode came when Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, two underground fighters sentenced to death, blew themselves up with grenades hidden in oranges rather than ascend the gallows. Their cell has been preserved exactly the way it was. Other former cells contain original artifacts and documents detailing life behind bars in the Mandate. We saw the restored bakery, once used by Russian pilgrims and later the place where prisoners baked pita; the storeroom where you handed in your civilian clothes and were given prison garb and "Room 23", the cell which prisoners decided to use for an escape attempt.
The piece of history that I have just described here all sounds extremely violent and a little scary. However my boys, being boys, found it all fascinating and handled it well. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to discover exactly how much my eldest son actually knows about the events of the time. He has learnt some things at school and a bit more from a wonderful Hebrew story book from the series Minheret Hazman, all about two kids who travel through time and witness many historical events in Israeli history.
All in all it was a great afternoon out. It was part scary, part exciting and pretty educational too.