Erlich, Naftali (Kurt)

He was born on the 26th of Tishrei 5724 (26.9.1923) in the city of Teplitz-Shinau in Czechoslovakia. His father, who was a pilot in the Czechoslovakian army, fled with his plane to the Soviet Union when the German army entered the Czech Republic, and has since disappeared. Naftali remained with his mother in occupied Czechoslovakia and at the outbreak of the war managed to escape to Denmark. He arrived in Israel in 1941. Here he joined the Kinneret group and began to adapt to the conditions of the country. His lively temper and the desire to avenge the Nazi enemy led him to volunteer for the British Army. At the end of 1941, Naftali volunteered for the British Army and was attached to the driver’s corps. With a Hebrew driver’s unit he served in Egypt and the Western Desert and reached the front line. There, on July 11, 1942, he was killed in the bombing of German planes near Marsa Matruh on the Egyptian-Libyan border. Naftali was buried in a British military cemetery in Egypt.