ABSTRACT
Following the German victories in the Western Desert in 1941 and 1942 and the vulnerable British military position in Egypt, there was a grave danger to Palestine and especially to the Jewish community. Evacuation plans were debated but they did not include the local population who was to stay and face the German occupation. There was an evacuation of some British families from Egypt, and European refugees and local Jews were also trying to escape to Jerusalem. The diary of Haviv Canaan brings us the developments in the summer of 1942 as regarded by the people of Jerusalem. By mid-1942, the Germans were already planning a holocaust in Palestine.
