Haimavits, Enrich

Was born on March 24, 1928 in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, where he studied at a high school for commerce and was a champion in several sports, and was an excellent athlete with a solid and flexible body, He joined the “Maccabi” in Romania and continued to train in the Cyprus exiles camp, where he was brought as an “illegal” immigrant on January 2, 1948, after the ship “Atzmaut” was captured by a British destroyer at sea, and was preparing for the life of the Haganah in Israel, where he completed a commanders’ course, and was an example of his physical fitness and his ability to practice. During an exercise jumping over obstacles, he fell and hurt his body, and called to his friends: “I do not feel anything else.” The paralysis took hold of all parts of his body, and all the pleading with the British to allow him to be transferred to Israel for surgery and healing did not help. Six days after being injured, he was buried in Cyprus. The last words he said to his parents were: “Do not leave me on foreign soil.” Indeed, on the 11th of Tammuz, 1951 (15.7.1951) was transferred to eternal rest in the military cemetery in Haifa. In his letter, son of-Gurion told a family that had lost her son on foreign soil: “The government of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces will always bear the memory of Enrich, who fell in the defense of the homeland and in the campaign for its freedom and independence.”