Friday, September 5, 2008
A fascinating story of a family's secret: Pardon sought for dad's aid to Israel
A South Florida man is working to get a presidential pardon for his father, who helped smuggle weapons to Jews fighting in what was then Palestine in the late 1940s
Weapons for sale, prison time and secret air missions halfway around the world.
All made up the hidden life of Charles Winters, an average guy, quiet, who never spoke with his children about those years just after World War II.
His son, Jimmy Winters of Miami, discovered the details of his father's adventures only after Charles Winters died in 1984. Before then, there were just some small clues.
As when teenage Jimmy asked his father to buy him a gun so he could go hunting with his buddies in the Everglades. His dad said no, that he wasn't allowed to buy guns.
He didn't add that it was because he was a convicted felon.
''That was the first hint I had that something had happened,'' said Jimmy Winters, 44.
In the late 1940s, nearly everyone in this area's large Jewish community, in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, wanted to help in the struggle to create Israel.
But Charles Winters was a Protestant from Boston. When it was all over, he was the only man to serve time. He served 18 months in prison for his help flying weapons to the Jews in Palestine, fighting for what would later become Israel...
The son catches a clue when there are blue and white flags all over his dad's funeral. Good luck to his efforts.
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Well deserved. Charles Winters ran arms to the Jewish Community of Palestine in the late 1940's. I linked to the story back in September: Son Seeks Pardon for Protestant Bostonian Who Sought to Arm Unarmed Jews. The link to the... Read More
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