Kimchi, Shabtai

Son of Simcha and Meir, was born in 1927 in the city of Vitula, Yugoslavia. He was three years old when his father died. The family immigrated to Israel in 1930 and the boy grew up in Jerusalem in conditions of poverty and deprivation. Shabtai studied at the “HaNoar HaOved” school in Jerusalem and graduated cum laude. Then he went on to study at an evening seminar, and spent his free time reading books, mostly science and weapons books, of great interest to him. Shabtai was a metalworker and worked in the iron beds industry in Tel Aviv, which he moved to in 1945. From his youth he was a member of the Haganah and worked hard to bring down illegal immigrants. At the outbreak of the War of Independence, he enlisted and served in the “Kiryati” Brigade. He had confided to his only cousin of his family, that he had a feeling he would fall in the war and asked her to comfort his mother if that happened. He was among the fallen on the 19th of Adar I 5708 (29.2.1948) in the “Yotzek” factory near Tel Aviv. This factory and another factory were adjacent to the Holon junction, and he served as guard post on the way to the south and Jerusalem. On February 29, 1948, a British army force arrived, accompanied by Arab gangs. The British confiscated the defenders’ weapons and left, abandoning the positionless men to the mercy of the Arabs. Some of the defenders managed to escape, but ten were murdered by the Arabs. Shabtai was laid to rest in the military cemetery at Nahalat Yitzhak. His brother Moshe fell in Jerusalem on July 17, 1948.