Harpaz was relatively fortunate because he could have been captured by the Syrians. Syrian attitudes towards Israel were more extreme than those of Egypt, and treatment tended to be more brutal.
After two months in solitary, Harpaz received his first visit from the Red Cross. He was told he’d be allowed to write one letter every two weeks to his wife, Nurit. These letters form the narrative of the book, “Letters From Captivity,” published in Hebrew in 2019, about a week before Harpaz would have celebrated his 80th birthday, some 45 years after his captivity.
Between 1973 and 1993, more than 30 of the 591 American ex-POWs from the Vietnam War published autobiographies. In contrast, Israeli POWs tended to maintain silence about their POW experiences. Only one of the 314 ex-POWs from the Yom Kippur War published a book between 1973-1993. I’m unsure how to interpret that.
Harpaz previously shared his POW experiences in 1987 when he participated as one of 10 subjects in Amia Lieblich’s oral history, “Seasons of Captivity: The Inner World of POWs.”
Apparently, Harpaz approached Lieblich with the idea of writing an oral history of the 10 Israeli POWs who shared Egyptian captivity for three years in one cell. Lieblich interviewed and separately recorded each of the 10 and some of their wives. The narratives cover differently stages of the POW experience, from living at first under total Egyptian control to the relative autonomy afforded the 10 prisoners when they were put together.
In studies of ex-POWs, chances of survival and future psychological health usually are determined by one’s personality and situational factors, such as the length and harshness of the captivity, the culture of the captors and the support received from others.
For those in captivity, the letters they received from spouses and family were tangible proof of support that they were not forgotten by the outside world.
In both his own book and in Lieblich’s oral history, Harpaz shares the central lesson he learned from his captivity: You need a correct, accurate assessment of your new situation. That’s the only way to define yourself in relation to those around you; to outline your new role; and to control, to some extent, how well you will bear up in a harsh and alien environment.
Harpaz notes that after his release, people asked him if he had considered suicide during his captivity.
“The question made no sense to me,” he answered. “Why commit suicide? What for? I can say with utter conviction that I never lost hope and had proven to myself repeatedly that human endurance has no limits. Boundless optimism is not proof of stupidity. On the contrary, it is a source of strength.”
I have never been a POW. I have been incarcerated. I totally relate to the author’s observation that any activity – whether physical or intellectual – temporarily freed him from captivity. More important, it gave him choice of how he spent his time without anyone or anything controlling what he did.
Since the book alternates between the letters of husband and wife, we learn how, at one point, Nurit is apprehensive at times to appear in public. “There is always someone who finds it urgent to mention just how wonderful Rami is, and how he keeps his spirit up, and so strengthens everyone,” she writes.
“And these comments, probably uttered innocently enough with the purpose of flattering me and making me stronger … end up achieving the opposite result.
“First, such comments emphasize how clearly I fail to reach soft lofty heights. Second … I have grown tired of the constant interest in you that overwhelms any interest in me, and not because I’m being petty or keeping some kind of score.”
Nurit has been left behind to care for their four children, of which two are a pair of twins born after Rami was shot down. So, she was in her own state of captivity. Unlike Rami, who spent most of his three-and-a-half years of confinement with a group of nine other Israeli pilots, “nine of the finest partners one might have in such oppressive circumstances,” Nurit did not have that sort of support during her times of despair.
“Letters From Captivity” isn’t great literature. But it’s genuine. It explores the ideals of love, duty, friendship and freedom. You can’t ask for more in a book.
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