Kimmelman, Helena

Helena, daughter of Paula and Yechezkel Kimmelman, was born in Lodz, Poland on February 1, 1928. She studied in an urban school and after the German occupation continued her studies in the ghetto until 1942. In 1943 her father was killed by the criminal police and she was taken with her mother to the Auschwitz death camp, and then to Bergen-Belsen, where she fell ill with typhus and was sent to Sweden for recovery. Eight months after the end of the war she managed to contact her mother and sister. With the assistance of the Jewish Agency office in Prague she went to Israel and arrived in Palestine on June 18, 1947. She did not have relatives or money and did not know the Hebrew language.
Helena was at the service of the first call for conscription, served first with a partial mobilization, and after some time was summoned for a full induction. Her letters about army life were full of life and humor. On the 19th of Tishrei, 5709 (October 22, 1948), she fell in an accident at the airport in Lod. She was laid to rest in the Nahalat Yitzhak military cemetery.