Fried, Mordechai (Mickey)

Son of Irene and Gazza, was born on July 7, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary, to a family of four, two daughters and two sons. Mickey was talented in many fields but especially excelled in football and his name went before him as an excellent player. He also knew how to sing and joined the choir of the synagogue in Budapest. In Hungary before the war there was activity by the Zionist youth movements and Mickey joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement. When the Germans entered Hungary in 1944, all members of his family were sent to an extermination camp in Auschwitz. Only Mickey and his brother survived because they came to the protected house of Raoul Wallenberg and were therefore under Swedish protection, but only for a short while and Mordechai was taken to the ghetto. At the end of the war Mordechai managed to establish contacts with Bericha members, underwent agricultural training in Hungary, and on February 9, 1947 immigrated to Israel on a ship to the Negev. Here he was educated as part of Youth Aliyah in a Hungarian youth group in Kibbutz Heftziba. He was a farmer and a member of the Palmach, and on April 1, 1948, he joined the Palmach and served in the Yiftach Brigade. Mordechai participated in the attack on the kings and conquest, the conquest of Al-Qubab and Jamzu, in the battles around Latrun, the conquest of Lod and the attack on Falluja. He recently accompanied convoys in the southern Negev. On 27 September 1948, he went on a landmine near the western water pipe in the Negev, was severely wounded and on the same day died of his wounds on his way to the hospital. Buried in the wind. Survived by a brother – Zvi, who survived and immigrated to Israel and became a member of Kibbutz Na’an. On the 16th of Iyar 5710 (16.5.1950) he was transferred to eternal rest in the Nahalat Yitzhak military cemetery.