Klein, Yona (Yanui)

Yona, son of Gisela and Albert Klein, was born in 1922 in Bikash, Hungary. With the Nazi takeover of the country he was taken to a concentration camp and there he suffered greatly. After the liberation he returned to his hometown and met with the survivors of his family. He moved to Budapest where he married a wife and went with her on the Bericha route, arriving in Palestine on one of the last illegal immigrant ships, Kommiyot. They were interned in Cyprus and allowed to immigrate in 1948, the year of the War of Independence. He had never been a soldier but in Israel he enlisted immediately and served in an armored unit in the 8th Brigade. He took part in the battles of Lod, Ramle, Latrun and the “Peugeot” pocket. Yona participated with his unit in the eighth attack on the Iraq-Suiden Police, the attack in which the fortress fell into our hands. He was severely injured in the leg, suffered for a week in the hospital and died of his wounds on 14 Cheshvan, 16 November 1948. He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Rechovot. Survived by his wife and a daughter.