Hermoni (Wittenberg), Benjamin
Son of Greta and Victor. Born on March 11, 1916 in Berlin to an assimilated family, the father, a lawyer by profession, was drafted into the German army during the First World War, and the mother raised her three sons by herself. A high school humanist, excelled at his studies and at the age of 14 joined a social-democratic youth movement and abandoned ideological Jewish studies, but with the rise of Nazism in Germany, at the age of 17 he severed ties with non-Jewish society and joined the Hehalutz movement That Zionism was the only solution to his future as a Jew, and in July 1933 went to Riga, Latvia, where he studied frameworks and joined the ” At the beginning of 1935 he moved to Eretz Israel in the “Shalsheles” group that first joined Givat Hashlosha and later merged with the “Batlem” group that moved to the Sea of Galilee and settled in Ein Gev. After his return to Ein Gev he became a Notre-Dame, went through various security courses and served as a guide in the Hagana and Navarot, during which time the Hebrew fishing began to develop in the Sea of Galilee and Benjamin was one of the first pioneers of the development of a branch It. His friends from that period attest to the great dedication he displayed in his new roles and the courage he required. At the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Merchant Navy and served on the “Atid” and “Lili” ships on the Haifa-Egypt-Eritrea route. His memoirs of that period attest to the many thoughts he devoted to the development of Hebrew seamanship and the discovery of sea routes to bring the refugees from Nazi Europe. In 1943, before his last voyage, he married a wife and after many preparations he sailed as part of “Aliya Bet” on the ship “Lily” to bring immigrants to Israel. On July 21, 1943, on its way between Cyprus and Haifa, the ship was shelled by a German submarine and drowned. Only two of the crew members survived, while the rest of them, including Benjamin, were unknown. A wife, a son born after his death, placed two brothers. His friends published in his memory a booklet containing diary chapters written and lines for his image; A monument in his memory was erected in the area of the fallen whose burial place is not known on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. This fallen hero is a “maklan” – a hero whose burial place is unknown.
