There were so many bunkers that not all could be manned at once—the Jews would have to determine the avenue of a German attack and orient the defense accordingly to have any hope of throwing it back. Unless the Germans chose a roundabout route through the hills, Yatom figured that Biali would face attack down the Lubinstrasse and the forester’s track that paralleled it to the north. The forester’s road terminated in an abandoned encampment a little less than three kilometers northwest of the town from where the Germans could easily launch a final assault on Biali. Yatom’s crews built a half—dozen bunkers within those deserted buildings too, turning the innocuous looking shacks into a killing ground.
Mofaz drowned his anger and worries in a multitude of tasks. Mostly, assisted by Nir, Bolander and Roi, he trained the bulk Biali’s new militia in basic infantry tactics. Driven by desperation and boredom the conglomeration of Polish, Dutch, Czech and Austrian Jews had made good progress, especially considering differences in language, culture and outlook. Most were destined to man Biali’s bunkers, where they were expected to fight to the bitter end. However, a few promising candidates were given more advanced instruction in the arts of war.
After an initial few days of target practice Mofaz and Bolander selected the best marksmen, including two young women, and sent them to Ilan for sniper training. Using two scoped Mausers and a pair of scoped Mosin—Nagants, the Israeli sniper trained four two person teams in shooting, spotting and camouflage skills. They were to deploy between the bunkers and on the flanks and aim for German officers and NCOs.
Rafi, assisted by a former Polish artillery officer named Podolsky, trained a pair of mortar crews to use the two 81mm mortars captured from Samsonov. Yatom permitted each crew to lob four bombs into the hills for practice. They all missed their intended targets, but not by too much. A heavy barrage would do some real damage to unprotected troops.
In addition to working with the local doctors and nurses in the Biali clinic, Ido trained them, and the clinics volunteers, in emergency battlefield medicine and evacuation. A dozen young men, mostly religious students who didn’t want to fight were selected out and trained as battlefield medics and stretcher bearers.
Roskovsky, worked with a pair of former Silesian miners, and using his own C-4, captured German explosives, and the mines and grenades taken from the death camps, to build all manner of improvised explosive devices. They designed demolition charges, booby traps and anti-devices. In particular, Roskovsky successfully built a half dozen explosively formed penetrators or EFPs. These copper-lined hollow charge devices created a molten slug of copper out of the lining and hurled it forward at hypersonic velocity. Roskovsky had brought three sophisticated radio controlled EFPs with him on the mission. Each was capable of penetrating a modern main battle tank. The six he constructed in Biali were detonated by cord, and were less powerful, but he guessed that their power was sufficient to take out a 1940s era tank. Roskovsky planned to put out the EFPs as an enemy attack developed along on the likeliest route of advance. To do this Roskovsky selected and trained a small combat—engineer platoon, with each squad led by one of the miners. These men would place and detonate the homemade EFPs, with all the dangers that entailed.
But the elite of Biali’s small army trained with Shapira and Chaim. This group consisted of twenty four volunteers, including several survivors of the Bears, who prepared for a limited assault on Belzec to be led by the two Gimmel team commandos. Yatom only decided to go after Belzec after hours of consideration and debate involving all members of the sayeret. Feldhandler still argued that that he entire sayeret with as many other Jews as necessary should attack and destroy the death camp. But Yatom refused to consider Feldhandler’s arguments, or be held hostage to the scientist’s demands.
In part this was because Feldhandler now seemed genuinely committed to returning the capsule anyway. Whether this was due to the challenge of the task, or emotional exhaustion Yatom neither knew nor cared. Mofaz was dead set against attacking Belzec as were several other men. But Shapira saw the assault on Belzec as a moral necessity. He volunteered to lead it alone, using only Jewish volunteers from Biali. Chaim, his wounds having healed sufficiently to go back into action, insisted on going too.
Shapira’s only reservation was personal, based on his increasingly intense relationship with Norit, the two having become lovers with a day of arriving in Biali. But Shapira also knew that Belzec had historically been the deadliest of the death camps, and could not see the point of all their sacrifices if Belzec continued to operate.
“Do you know,” Shapira told the sayeret during one of the debates “that only two living Jews ever emerged from Belzec, out of perhaps 700,000 people who entered the place?”
“Things are different now,” said Yatom. “We made it so.”
“I doubt it. It’s more likely that Belzec will be pressed to make up for the loss of the other camps. Besides, Sandler is going there, and expecting to meet us.”
“Who knows if he is even alive, or that he will bother, or can even find the place,” countered Mofaz. “Without the rest of the sayeret it’s likely to be a suicide mission.”
“I don’t intend to take the place,” argued Shapira. “I’ve talked to Roskovsky. He can fashion most any type of demo charge we need. The idea is to infiltrate or break into the camp only where the gas chambers are located, destroy them, and withdraw. That’s it.”
Yatom finally agreed to the mission, on the condition that the sole objective would be to destroy the gas chambers in the extermination sub-camp, not conquer the place. That would be hard and dangerous enough reckoned the sayeret leader—but not impossible.
Norit insisted on coming with Shapira when she learned of the plan. Shapira refused to consider it, and ultimately convinced the tough Israeli girl to remain behind only by pointing that her sister still desperately needed her. Shapira promised that he would return one way or another. Norit, hardened by Treblinka, and the loss of everybody important to her but Hannah, knew that such talk was empty. Yet, she was too tired and damaged to fight on. She accepted that her lover was almost certainly doomed.
Roskovsky supplied Shapira with three types of explosive especially for the Belzec mission: a simple satchel charge he created from explosives taken from the Sobibor land mines; grenade bundles in which four stick grenades were taped together and could be detonated with the pull of a single detonating cord; and Molotov cocktails which he created from petrol and motor oil, mixed with tar. Each man in the assault unit would carry a satchel charge or a grenade bundle plus a Molotov.