During World War II, Rudolphina Menzel played a significant role in the Allied war effort by training mine-detecting dogs for the British army’s use on the North African front. The Allied forces faced considerable challenges in North Africa, where the Germans had been laying hundreds of thousands of land mines since 1939. As the fighting intensified there in the early 1940s, the British had already exhausted their canine reserves on the European front and found themselves with a deficit of mine-detecting dogs. In June 1942, a meeting of high-ranking British officers was held under the auspices of the British Mandate’s Veterinary Services Department, which was in charge of all the animals in Palestine. The officers discussed the urgent need for mine-detecting dogs in North Africa and agreed that every effort should be made to train and purchase them as soon as possible. Knowing that Rudolphina was an expert in training dogs to detect mines, they appealed to her for help. Rudolphina in turn consulted with Moshe Sharett, Director of the Jewish Agency’s Foreign Affairs Department, to seek his approval before taking any action....

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