Avraham-Cotter, Shmuel (Sammy)

Son of Hannah and Ephraim. He was born in 1929 in Dorohoy, Romania. When his mother was four years old and his old father could not take care of him, his relative, Shalom Cotter, adopted him. In the school, he succeeded well in his studies, but could not continue them because of the takeover of Romania by the Fascists and the Nazis. On several occasions, the Fascists massacred the Jews of his city and murdered his old father. But he miraculously survived. He was deported with his family and the rest of the Jews to a camp in Transnistria, where some members of his family died. After four years of suffering, he returned to Romania with the Russian occupation and joined the Gordonia movement. In 1946, he immigrated to Israel in a convoy of orphans of Transnistria in the framework of Youth Aliyah and was sent with his group for education and training in Petah Tikva. In the winter of 1948, he took part in Hagana activities in the area, then joined the Palmach Harel Brigade and completed a course of reconnaissance sappers. He participated in repelling the enemy from the Gezer group and in battles that were then abandoned on the way to Jerusalem and fell at the site of Abu Lahm on the 14th of Av, 5708 (August 14, 1948), where he was buried. The investigation of the Missing Persons Unit in the IDF found that Shmuel was buried in an anonymous grave on Mount Herzl.