The year is 1942. World War II is underway. The British command is developing a secret military operation in Libya and recruits a group of German Jews to carry it out. This special unit, disguised in Nazi uniforms, is tasked with destroying Wehrmacht fuel depots. The mission is nearly impossible — but orders are orders.

This is the plot of the American war film Tobruk, which premiered on the big screen in 1967. Not all moviegoers know that the characters in the film were inspired by real people. One of them was Chaim (Karl) Kahane — a co-founder of the Israeli paratroopers, a soldier in British special forces, and in his youth, a defender of the short-lived Ukrainian state in Lviv.

The future war hero was born on August 6, 1900, to Yosef Kahane, originally from the town of Skomorokhy, and Pesia Margulis, a native of Teofipol in the Vinnytsia region. Before World War I, the Kahane family lived in the village of Smolianka in the Ternopil region, then part of Austria-Hungary. Yosef Kahane had many children: a daughter, Brane, and sons David-Pinchas, Avraham, Yekel, Yaakov-Isaac, Borukh, and Chaim.

As a child, little Chaim Kahane wasn’t particularly tall or strong. He was constantly afraid — of his strict father, of the elderly melamed (religious teacher) at the cheder, and most of all, of his Christian peers. To reach the cheder in a neighboring village, Jewish children had to cross an old bridge, where local hooligans often harassed them — sometimes beating them and stealing their food bundles.

But one day, seven-year-old Chaim stopped being afraid. On the way to cheder with his brother and two friends, he spotted Stepan, the village gang leader, waiting with a group on the far side of the bridge. Chaim walked ahead and, coming close to the bully, was immediately struck on the head and ribs with a stick. A sharp pain shot through his body — but the boiling blood of the little Jewish boy overpowered his fear. Without thinking, Chaim lunged at Stepan and began hitting him with his fists. The gang quickly retaliated, pelting him with stones. Blood dripped from his nose and head, but his heart rejoiced — he had stood up for himself. He had fought like David against Goliath.

When his father learned of the incident, he immediately whipped Chaim, scolding him: “You’ll remember this — don’t provoke the goyim!” But the next day, his son went to cheder calmly, proudly carrying his bread bundle on his shoulder. That day, still just a boy, Chaim Kahane understood the simple truth of war: “If you want to survive — kill your fear.”

The tyranny of his father, a deeply religious man who saw the yetzer hara (evil inclination) in everything, eventually became unbearable. Chaim ran away to Ternopil. Out of pity for his mother, he returned several months later — dressed in new clothes and bearing gifts he had bought with money he earned doing odd jobs.

As he grew older, Chaim became increasingly feisty. Anyone daring to challenge him usually ended up backing away with a black eye.

Once, when a traveling circus came to the neighboring town of Mykulyntsi, Chaim, who didn’t have the 20 kreuzers for a ticket, tried to force his way in: “What ticket? I’m local — I have the right!” Within moments, the bold teenager was dragged out by the collar. Pulling a pocketknife from his coat, Chaim began threatening the guards. Before he could react, angry townspeople came after him. They chased him through the streets, eventually catching him and throwing him onto a sand pile. Even the town mayor, Mr. Kurz, felt it his duty to strike Chaim with a cane. That evening, his furious father met him at the gate with a switch in hand. The punishment lasted three days. Chaim gritted his teeth but didn’t cry. He knew that soon his sister Brane would be leaving to live with their aunt in Vienna — and he would follow her.

Indeed, soon after his bar mitzvah, Chaim moved to Vienna to live with Brane. Eventually, the entire family joined them. His father gradually softened, and Chaim began befriending local Jewish boys, very different from those in Smolianka. In Vienna, he first heard of the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and began attending a Zionist youth club with his new friends. It was there that he first saw the white and blue flag.

But Chaim’s peaceful life in Vienna and his involvement in Zionist meetings didn’t last long. On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated. When the war began, Chaim’s father was sent to the Italian front, and his older brother David-Pinchas was deployed to Serbia. Chaim went to the enlistment office and tried to volunteer, but at fourteen, he was turned away and sent home. For several years, he served as the head of the household — until his own draft notice arrived.

Among his Jewish peers, many looked for ways to avoid the draft. Chaim Kahane saw things differently. The world was changing, and there was talk — especially among Zionists — that a Jewish state might one day be established in Palestine. If that were to happen, young Jews would need to be trained in military skills.

He was sent to Moravia, where he began his service in the Austro-Hungarian army. The experience was far from inspiring: corruption was rampant, discipline was mindless and rigid, and the Rusyn corporal in charge of the new recruits constantly tried to extort money from them. In the German-speaking ranks of the army, Chaim became Karl — a name that would stick with him even in Israel.

After basic training, in June 1918, he was deployed to Italy as part of the 15th Galician Infantry Regiment. The barely trained young soldiers were immediately thrown into battle, tasked with storming Italian positions along the Piave River. During the Battle of the Piave — a bloody and inconclusive conflict — soldiers died like flies. When the unit returned to its base in Moravian Ostrava, it was so depleted that reinforcements had to be brought in immediately.

From the Italian front, Kahane was transferred back to his native region, near Ternopil, where the Russo-Austrian front had remained stagnant for a long time. During a positional battle, he was wounded — a bullet entered through his groin and passed through his body.

After being discharged from the hospital, Chaim returned to his unit. In addition to their regular duties, the soldiers were constantly involved in requisitions: confiscating grain, cattle, and horses from local peasants in the rear. In return, they paid with banknotes that had no real value — a result of the rampant inflation at the end of World War I. Everything pointed to the inevitable collapse of the once-mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire: unrest was growing in the rear, and the initial patriotic fervor on the front lines had long since vanished.

Discipline completely fell apart in November 1918. Among the soldiers — Czechs, Ukrainians, and Poles — whispers began to circulate, and the Jews, sensing what was coming, felt trouble approaching their streets.

The commander of Kahane’s company, an educated and decent Pole, gathered his men one evening. This time, instead of giving an order, he addressed them with an unusually personal speech for the battlefield.

“The monarchy has fallen,” he began. “You have fulfilled your duty, but you are now released from the oath you swore to the emperor. A Polish Republic has been proclaimed. A Czechoslovak Republic is taking shape. Hungary is in turmoil. So, men — go home.”

The Polish soldiers left in an orderly fashion. The Ukrainians remained in the Lviv garrison. They approached Chaim with a proposal: to fight alongside them for the Ukrainian Republic. That same day, on one of Lviv’s streets, he met a Jewish lieutenant named Goldberg — a member of the Zionist committee. Goldberg removed the insignia of the fallen Austro-Hungarian monarchy from Kahane’s uniform and pinned a blue-and-white ribbon to his cap.

Chaim shared his idea with Goldberg: to enlist with the Ukrainians so that the Jewish community of Lviv — often caught between two fires — would have someone representing them within the ranks of the Galician Ukrainian Army. Goldberg immediately agreed.

In a single night, Corporal Chaim Kahane was promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer. Immediately after joining the ranks of the Galician Army, he took part in street fighting against the Poles. In the heat of battle, as the commander of a small unit, he participated in assaults on the main Polish stronghold. Distinguished in combat, Kahane even received praise from a Ukrainian colonel who bore a striking resemblance to a university lecturer.

At night, just as he had planned earlier, Kahane would sneak into Jewish homes, urging people to pack their belongings and flee westward. It should be noted that he went to fight for the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic more for the sake of the Jews than for the Ukrainian national cause. In breaks between battles, he sent coal, firewood, and bread to those who had stayed behind. Jews were afraid to carry their dead out of their homes, so the Jewish soldier alone would transport the bodies to the cemetery on a handcart.

One day, while pulling such a cart from the Jewish quarter, a small boy came running up to him, out of breath. He told Chaim that armed men had infiltrated the neighborhood and were preparing something terrible. Kahane quickly hid the bodies in an abandoned cinema building and rushed back to his unit. When he ordered his soldiers to deploy to defend the Jewish quarter, they refused. There was no time, so Kahane grabbed a rifle, tucked two grenades into his belt, and ran alone toward the Jewish market, silently repeating to himself two words: “Kiddush Hashem… Kiddush Hashem” — “Sanctifying the Name of God.” Near the first stalls, he saw the silhouettes of men. Throwing a grenade at them, he saw the pogromists fall.

On the night of November 22, 1918, Ukrainian forces began to retreat from Lviv. Kahane broke into a military depot, stuffed his pockets with ammunition and cigarettes, and, not wanting to leave anything behind for the enemy, set the building on fire. He decided to escape the city on horseback but soon encountered a Polish vanguard. Drunken shouts echoed from nearby streets. Legionnaires were pouring in from all directions. Remembering the cinema, he galloped there, dismounted, and ran into the building. To his surprise, two Ukrainian soldiers were already hiding inside. He barely had time to catch his breath when the doors began to splinter — moments later, all three were captured.

The Poles, rifles at the ready, drove the prisoners into some kind of gymnasium. A senior officer entered, glanced sternly at the Ukrainians, and with a dramatic gesture of his gloved hand ordered, “Shoot them all!” — then walked out. Kahane realized that if he didn’t act within the next few seconds, he would not survive. He quickly turned to a guard who was looking the other way and said, “He called me!”
“Who?”
“The officer who was just here — he called me!”
There was nothing to lose. Without waiting for a reply, Kahane turned and walked confidently out of the room. No one stopped him outside either. He turned his coat inside out, threw away his military cap, and briskly made his way toward the Jewish market. In Lviv, the celebrations were in full swing: red-and-white Polish flags waved from rooftops, and somewhere a military orchestra was playing.

In the Jewish quarter, Kahane was met with an entirely different scene. Broken bricks and smashed furniture lay in piles on the cobblestone streets, and the air was thick with nauseating smells — smoke, burnt hair, and charred flesh. On the street, he found a boy whose head had been split open by a saber. From a windowsill in one of the houses hung the body of a bearded Jewish man, and in a nearby courtyard lay an elderly woman with her abdomen slashed open.

Being outside was dangerous. After wandering for several hours through the center of Lviv, Kahane noticed a small sign on a door indicating that a Jewish potter had once lived there. When he rang the bell, he didn’t expect anyone to answer — but after a while, the owner appeared at the door. Kahane stayed with him for several days, until the bloodshed came to an end.

Soon after, the Polish authorities established an office in the city to register former Austrian soldiers. At the commission, Chaim Kahane once again had to become the German-speaking Austrian “Karl” and answer tricky questions: What was the name of the street where he had lived in Vienna? Where were the borders of the 10th district? What was the main street of the district, and which building there was the most notable? After receiving the coveted document, he made his way carefully through the outskirts toward the train station — for a Jew and former Ukrainian NCO, walking openly through Lviv was extremely risky. At the station, he managed to squeeze into a carriage filled with Austrian POWs returning from Russia, and part of the journey home he completed in the driver’s cabin.

When his foot finally stepped onto the platform of Vienna’s railway station, Chaim began to shake. On that dark Hanukkah night, he approached his family’s home. Standing in front of the door, he heard his mother’s voice from inside: “We’re lighting candles here… but who knows where my Chaim’s bones are scattered…” As it turned out later, someone had told his family that they had seen him in that gymnasium in Lviv — claiming to have personally witnessed Chaim being executed along with Ukrainian prisoners of war.