Geiger, Shaul (Peli)

Saul, son of Paula and Carl, was born on the 24th of Iyar 5623 (June 10, 1962) in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. A son of a family of laborers. After graduating from elementary school he studied carpentry. On the eve of World War II, some 200,000 Jews lived in Budapest, which constituted about a fifth of the city’s population. The city was one of the largest Jewish centers in Europe and Jews played an important role in the development of the agriculture and cultural life. At the end of the 1930s anti-Semitic sentiments intensified, and since 1938 a series of anti-Jewish laws were enacted in Hungary, similar to the Nuremberg Laws. The Jewish men were taken to the Munkaszolgalat (Labor Service) of the Hungarian army, many of whom perished. With the capture of Hungary by the Germans on March 19, 1944, the situation of the Jews of Budapest deteriorated greatly. They were dispersed in special houses marked with a Star of David, their businesses closed and hundreds of them arrested. In April-July 1944 the Jews were rounded up from all over Hungary and systematically deported to Auschwitz. Saul worked in his profession until the Holocaust swept through Hungary as well. The Nazis murdered his family, only he survived because he was fit for hard labor. He was transferred from one labor camp to another and suffered severe torture. After the end of the war, Shaul decided to leave Hungary. On May 7, 1946, he boarded the ship “Max Nordau” in the port of Constanta, Romania. The ship, which was organized by representatives of the “Aliyah Bet” of the Haganah, carried 1,633 immigrants from Romania and Poland, Holocaust survivors and members of Zionist youth movements. Near Caesarea beach, collided with a British destroyer who sent a takeover team. “Max Nordau” was taken to Haifa, and its immigrants were removed from it while waving the Hebrew flag. Shaul was transferred with the other immigrants to the detention camp at Atlit, where he stayed for about a month. Upon his release from the detention camp, in mid-June 1946, Shaul established his seat in Haifa. He made a living from carpentry. In due course, he enlisted in the Golani Brigade, the No. 1 Brigade in the Haganah, and served in the Gershon sub-district. He was sent as reinforcements to Kibbutz Sha’ar Hagolan in the Jordan Valley. On the 15th of Iyar 5708 (May 15, 1948), a day after the establishment of the State of Israel, a regular Syrian brigade, armed with armored vehicles, infantry and artillery, invaded the Jordan Valley and began to attack the settlements in the area. Near the Water Institute of Kibbutz Shaar Hagolan, and the shelling lasted for a long time until it was destroyed, and Shaul was seriously injured in the shelling, and before he could be taken out of the battlefield, he died of his wounds and five of the eight defenders fell. And were brought to rest in a mass grave at the Sha’ar Hagolan cemetery, which is the last bastion. Who survived the Holocaust in the ghettos and / or concentration and extermination camps and / or in flight and hiding in the territories occupied by the Nazis and / or fighting alongside the members of the underground or the partisans in the territories The Nazi occupation that came to Israel, during or after World War II, wore uniforms and fell in the Israeli army.