In 1943 Yehoshua joined the movement following his sister’s, Hanna (Atsmon), steps. After the German invasion of Hungary on 19.3.1944, his sister’s apartment in Budapest served as a meeting place for the members of the movement who operated in the underground and some of whom were refugees from Slovakia. The activities included the forgery of documents and their distribution.
In May 1944 Yehoshua was enlisted in a forced labor unit. He escaped with the help of forged documents and money he had received from a comrade who came to the camp where he was staying. Yehoshua stayed in a bunker in a suburb of Budapest. At the end of November the bunker was discovered and its occupants were caught and incarcerated in the central military prison on Margit Boulevard.
Yehoshua and a large group of friends were liberated in a daring rescue operation of the underground activists. He arrived at a Protected House on Wekerle Sándor Street from where he was liberated.
After the liberation he gathered Jewish children from hiding places and from the ghetto and took them to children’s houses.
Yehoshua was active in the B’riha.
At the end of November he boarded a ship that was caught by the British and its passengers taken to Cyprus. Yehoshua stayed in Cyprus for about a year, then he made aliya and joined the garin in Kfar Hahoresh. Nowadays he lives in Protea, a pensioneers’ village.
