In the British Commonwealth war cemetery in Ramle, Israel, is a grave that has been receiving quite a lot of footfall from tourists in the past decade. The grave belongs to Private Harry Potter, but it’s not the world-famous J.K. Rowling character of the “boy who lived.”
Emmy award-winning journalist and historian Oren Rosenfeld is behind a new project curating rare photos from Mandatory Palestine, what Israel was called under British rule between 1917-1948. The British Mandate in the Holy Land project publishes daily discoveries, showcasing colorized archival photos and Rosenfeld’s own photography.
He recently highlighted a photo of the resting place of a British soldier killed during the Arab Revolt, a violent uprising against both British rule and Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. Harry Potter, of the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment’s Motor Transport division was killed in action when the truck he was driving was attacked by an Arab gang, known today as ‘Palestinians,’ and was shot dead 6 km south of Hebron at the Pump outpost.
Potter was born in 1920 in Kidderminster in England and was one of eight children, leaving school at age 14, after which he worked at a carpet factory before enlisting in the British Army at the age of 16. Because he was too young to join the army, Potter lied about his age and said he was a year older than he actually was. In 1938, Harry Potter became a soldier in the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment.
In September of that year, Potter and his battalion was transferred to Mandatory Palestine, which was where modern-day Israel is today, but under British rule. His mission was to suppress the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs who were engaged in a revolt against the British administration, demanding independence. After traveling across what is now Israel, Potter was eventually stationed at a pumping station just south of Hebron that supplied water to the city, near where he was killed.