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Altagnog, Heinz Carl

Altagnog, Heinz Carl


He was born on January 13, 1922, in Berlin, Germany. In October 1939 he immigrated to Israel as part of the Youth Aliyah. In Israel, he joined the Beit She’arim youth group. A few months later he moved to Magdiel for further training, and then to Kfar Sirkin. His friends called him Heinz ABC (E – Altagnog – B – Berlin C – Charlottenburg). He enlisted in the Nutras and for a while served in Tiberias. In July 1941, at the height of the Second World War, he enlisted in the British Army and was assigned to Transport Unit 462. On April 28, 1943 he sailed with about three hundred soldiers of his unit and with the soldiers of other units aboard the ship “Arinapura” from the port of Alexandria. The destination of the voyage was Malta and the aim was to help the Allies in the invasion of Sicily. On the afternoon of January 1, 1943, in the afternoon, a German aircraft carrier attacked a convoy of ships headed by the “Aryanpura”. The ship absorbed two direct hits and within minutes began to sink into the depths. Along with the sinking ship, a hundred and forty of the soldiers of Unit 462 also drowned. Heinz was among them. His name was commemorated in the “Book of the Year of the Press” and in the “Yizkor Book” of the Jabotinsky Institute. In the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a ship-shaped memorial was erected in memory of the missing, and next to it is a water pool with the names of the fallen engraved on the bottom. The space is a machete – a space whose burial place is unknown

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