Cohen, Shlomo (Werner)

Son of Elfriede and Ze’ev, was born on October 8, 1916, in the city of Breslau, Germany. In 1934 he successfully passed the matriculation exams at the Gymnasium. For a while (from November 1938 to January 1939) he was in Buchenwald concentration camp, but in March 1939 he succeeded in immigrating to Israel with a student’s aliyah permit and studying at the Hebrew Technion in Haifa. In 1940 he was forced to stop his studies and went to work. From May 1941 to May 1948 he worked in a military camp near Kiryat Motzkin as an expert on machines. He had a strong desire for studies and a quick grasp of language. He acquired the Hebrew language easily and participated in various English courses, shorthand, machine writing and more. While abroad, he had acquired, without any teacher’s help, deep knowledge of reading and speaking in Arabic, Spanish and the language of the Negroes who served in the camp. Shlomo was a gifted painter who played the harmonica well. During the War of Independence he served in one of the companies in the Givati ​​Brigade and participated in battles near Ashdod. After a short vacation he was sent to Negba. In preparation for the resumption of hostilities after the first truce, Operation An-Far was planned to break through the Negev. However, the Egyptians violated the truce and attacked it on the night of July 7-8, 1948, seized several outposts and disrupted the plan. As part of the operation, our forces attacked the night of July 8-9, and the Givati ​​forces occupied the Ibdis outpost, northeast of the Negev. In the following days, the Egyptians carried out repeated heavy attacks on the outpost and Givati ​​fighters, with stubborn defense, repulsed the attacks. He died on Tuesday, 10 July 1948. According to his commander, he was hit by shrapnel in the neck as he brought ammunition to his comrades and died on the spot and was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Beer Tuvia.