Henig, Benjamin

Son of Sarah and Moshe, was born in 1917 in Bielsko, Poland. He was a religious educator in a “cheder” and studied in an elementary school. He was active in the “Hashomer Hadati” movement and during the Second World War participated in underground activities. He went through various Nazi camps and lost his family. His parents and sister perished in the Auschwitz camp. At the end of the war he joined a training kibbutz in Sosnowiec, where he held a central position and served as secretary of the kibbutz. His friends appreciated his honesty and devotion to religion and mitzvot. Before departing on the way to aliyah, he separated from his only sister who had survived his family and who had decided to rebuild her life in Poland. Benjamin moved to Germany, lived on a training farm in Essenbach, and boarded the ship Shabtai Lozinski. In the summer of Adar 5707, the ship arrived at Nitzanim beach in the south and Binyamin was one of the first to jump to the Yavneh group, and from there he went to Kfar Etzion a few days later to join his friends from the religious youth movement. In the last attack on Kfar Etzion, on the 4th of Iyar 5708 (13.5.1948), he took part in a position in the northeastern section of the village. Although several shells hit the post, its defenders continued to repel the enemy until its armor broke into the village and its defenders fell one by one. His girlfriend, Chaya Lederman, was also among the fallen. On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949) he was laid to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.