Kenigsberger, Gershon (Gerd)
Son of Roza and Aharon (Erwin) was born on March 18, 1818 in Neu-Stettin, Germany, and grew up in Berlin. As a child he had been circumcised by his mother. He attended elementary and high school, and as a youth he was interested in the problems of Palestine and Zionism. About two years before the Nazi takeover he stopped his studies, went to training in Cologne and studied horticulture. On September 2, 1935 he immigrated to Israel and joined Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. He studied driving and worked in transportation from the potash plant in the northern Dead Sea to the railway station in Jerusalem. In 1945 he left the kibbutz and worked as a civilian driver in the service of the British army, as a driver and laborer in the potash factory in “stone and lime” and as a member of a transport cooperative. As a member of the Haganah he participated in the 1936-1939 riots in the defense of Ramat Rachel and Ramat Hakovesh. During the War of Independence, he was drafted into the Hagam Battalion in the Jerusalem Brigade and took part in all the activities and battles of his unit, and on May 19, 1948, he fell on Mount Zion in an attempt to break into the Old City to liberate the Jewish Quarter from the siege. He was buried in Sheikh Bader Aleph. On the 28th of Elul 5710 (10.9.1950) he was put to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
