Birkenfeld, Rudi (Shlomo)

Rudi (Shlomo), son of Elsa and Hans Birkenfeld, was born in 1912 in Breslau, Germany. After his marriage, he and his wife immigrated to Israel in 1936. He served as a platoon commander in the Palmach, participated in ambushes and patrols, and later joined the Golani Brigade and participated in operations and battles. He took part in the first attack on the Tzemach police, arriving with the reinforcements sent from the Jordan Bloc to capture the police at the bridge and took part in an operation near al-Hama. In an attack on Arab-al-Zubayh on May 6, 1948, he ordered his men to retreat, and when he reached the gates of Beit Keshet he was hit by a stray bullet in the spinal cord. Rudy was brought to the hospital in Afula and, in severe agony, died a week later, on the 3rd of Iyar (May 12, 1948). He was brought to eternal rest in the cemetery in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov.