About two weeks before the attack on the King David Hotel, Topsy (Malka Yefet) came to my home to take me to the X-ray Institute in Balfour Street for a routine X-ray The physician received me immediately. Again I was forced to engage in acrobatics, since the 'aeroplane' made it difficult to X-ray the arm area. After two unsuccessful attempts, the X-ray was taken and I waited patiently in the other room for the film to be developed. The doctor came in smiling and told us that the fracture had healed. We took the X-rays with us and went to neighboring Hadassah hospital, where Dr. Friedlander informed me ceremoniously that the time had come to take off the cast, which I had been wearing for the past three months. After sawing away for what seemed like an eternity, Dr Friedlander removed the cast to reveal a thin, spindly, immobile arm. The wound was bandaged, and the arm bound up in a large kerchief. It was now time for the neurologists and physiotherapists to take over. As great as my joy was that the bone had healed and the cast had been removed, so was my disappointment that I could not move my arm it a fraction.
Several days later Topsy came back and took me to Tel Aviv to see various doctors. Together with Dr. Matan we went to a neurologist, whose name I have made every effort to forget. After examining my arm thoroughly, he asked me suddenly: "Tell me, are you religious?" I was surprised at the question, and asked him why he asked. He replied that he recommended prayer, since only God could help. I left in disgust and we went to another neurologist. We started to tell him the circumstances of the injury, and he interrupted nervously: "Don't tell me your name or where you live. I will examine you and recommend treatment, but don't tell anyone that you've been to see me."I allowed him to examine my arm, for which he recommended electric shock treatment, but felt I could not rely on the advice of someone as blatantly crazy as him.
We finally found Dr. Weizer, who greeted me warmly and explained that he was opposed to the Irgun's ideology, but would do everything in his power to help me and fulfill his obligations as a physician. Dr. Weizer was born and trained in Germany. He came to Palestine in 1933 to join his sister, who was a member of Kibbutz Naan. Since he could not find employment in his chosen profession, he had worked as a laborer. After eighteen months, he left the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv, where he opened a private clinic in his apartment in Yonah Street. After the War of Independence, he set up the Physical Medicine department at Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv and later at Ichilov Hospital.
Dr. Weizer started with 'shock treatment', though of a kind different to that the previous doctor had in mind. He showed me photographs of deformed arms and explained that my arm would look like that if I did not follow the exercise regime he was going giving me. If I worked hard and persevered, I had a good prospect of total recovery. This marked the beginning of a difficult four-month period. The first exercise was to straighten my arm. Dr. Weizer, a stocky man, gripped my arm in his strong hands and began to straighten it by force. I suffered agonies, but uttered not a sound. Next thing I knew I was lying on the doctor's sofa - apparently I had fainted.
From that day on my life changed: I was no longer idle and at leisure, but busy with painful physiotherapy. Once an hour I used my healthy arm to exercise my fingers and elbow for ten minutes. The idea was to bend the finger or elbow until I could endure the pain no longer and only then to relax it. The pain was overshadowed by the hope that I would be able to use my injured arm again. Every afternoon Shulamit Ben Yaakov would come to my home and give me electrical treatment for half an hour to stimulate the nerves. She also gave me calcium injections to strengthen the bones. One day she arrived wearing a dress, which buttoned down the front and mischievously set me a task: "I will allow you to unbutton the dress," she said, "on condition that you do it with your right hand." I immediately set to it, but it was quite beyond my powers, and after the third button I gave up. From then on, I practiced unbuttoning daily, but Sara never appeared in the same dress again.
I started the exercises early in the morning and continued until bedtime. Twice a week, I went to Dr. Weizer for a check-up and for 30 minutes of intensive treatment. During one of the visits, I met Yehoshua Saban (known as 'Pop' - short for "popitas", or sunflower seeds, of which he was very fond), a cheerful and good-looking young man who was always in high spirits. Yehoshua had been wounded in the left hand during the attack on the Ramat Gan police station and also needed physiotherapy. Since my injury was in the right arm, we complemented one another in various exercises and in handling the medicine ball. As our conditions improved, swimming was added to the regimen. It was a pleasant contrast to the tortures we had suffered at the hands of Dr. Weizer and we set out daily for the Galei Gil swimming pool in Ramat Gan (now the site of the Diamond Exchange). Yehoshua was fond of mischief and, after tiring of swimming, would start pushing any nearby girls into the water. On one occasion he caused such a scandal that we felt we couldn't to return to the pool and started to swim at Tel Aviv beach instead.
My condition improved steadily, and I was eager to return to action. The injured arm was still too weak to handle a rifle, but a revolver can be fired with one hand. It was finally decided that as long as I was receiving medical treatment, I would be seconded to the Revolutionary Propaganda Unit, and after making a full recovery, I would return to the Fighting Force. I was not particularly pleased, but preferred this option to continued inactivity. I was appointed commander of a unit and worked enthusiastically to educate a new generation, which would some day join the ranks of the Fighting Force.
