Fishel, Shimon

Son of Feiga and Kalman, was born on June 15, 1920 in the town of Wierwa, Czechoslovakia. He completed an elementary school in his city and then studied baking and specialized in it. In 1942, the Nazis transferred his whole family to the Auschwitz extermination camp and only sent him to forced labor in the Novaky concentration camp. When the Red Army approached the Czechoslovak border in 1944, he was also transferred to Auschwitz, but remained there for a long time, because the Russian army also reached this extermination camp and the Germans began to evacuate him and take with them the detainees. During the evacuation campaign, Shimon fell helpless and the Germans, who thought him dead, left him on the way. When he returned to him, he began to wander the roads, and for two weeks he was nourished by wild herbs and whatever he could get, and so he finally came to his hometown. Since then, he aspired to immigrate to Eretz Israel, because according to the recognition that penetrated his Lev during the period of his stay in the extermination camp, only in the Land of Israel would the revival of the Jewish people be possible. In 1946 he left for Palestine on the illegal immigrant ship La Spezia. Soon he became involved in the life of the country, worked in his profession as a baker and covered himself with dignity. When the War of Independence broke out he was in Jerusalem and immediately volunteered for the ranks of the defenders. He was one of the escorts of the convoys to Mount Scopus. The road to Mount Scopus passed through the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and upon the outbreak of the war the movement was allowed to mount convoys secured by the British army. On the morning of April 13, 1948, a convoy left for Mount Scopus, after the British promised that the road was open and safe. The convoy encountered an Arab ambush in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and hundreds of Arabs hurled heavy gunfire at it. Some of the vehicles managed to get out and return, but two buses, an ambulance and an escort escort were caught in ambush. For many hours the convoy members fought and tried to prevent the Arabs from approaching the vehicles. Fire from our positions in the city and Mount Scopus, as well as armored vehicles sent to the area, failed to help the convoy. British military forces in the area did not intervene and did nothing to help, despite their requests. In the afternoon the Arabs managed to set fire to two buses on their passengers. Only in the late evening did the British intervene and rescue the survivors from the trapped vehicles. When the caravan encountered the roadblock, he was the first to decide to leave his car, remove it and clear the road again – but a bullet hit him and he fell in a void on April 13, 1948. He was brought to eternal rest in a cemetery in Sanhedria in Jerusalem .