Kopler, Gershon

He was born on August 5, 1906, in the town of Nadorna, in eastern Galicia, as a son of a poor, traditional family. When World War I broke out, the family fled from the Cossacks to Vienna, Austria. The father was taken to the army and the mother died of an illness. The six children moved from one orphanage to another and at the end of the war the father returned from the front but could not support the large family. Gershon, 14, was forced to go to work to help him. Alongside his work, Gershon was active in the Socialist Youth Movement in Vienna, and especially in its sports association, which was particularly attracted to the swimming industry and achieved considerable achievements. At the time he was far from Judaism and Jewish society, but with the rise of unemployment in Austria he decided to immigrate to Palestine on the advice of his brother who had immigrated there earlier. He was brought to Israel in 1933. He worked as a construction worker in Haifa and in the evenings he taught in various sports in the “Hapoel” association. In this association he laid the foundations for the heavy athletics industry in HaPoel and also developed water sports. For a while he served as a sports teacher at the vocational school in Yagur and then went on to live in the kibbutz and he joined him as a full member. He later gave an active hand in bringing illegal immigrants to the shores of the country. During the Second World War, with the increasing danger of the invasion of the Germans and their allies, Gershon was ordered to train recruits for special assignments. On 21 Iyar, 18 May 1941, 23 young men, most of them apprentices, went on a daring mission to sabotage the refinery in Tripoli, Lebanon. Gershon was among them. They had sailed in the “Ari HaYam” motorboat, but the operation was not carried out for unknown reasons, and traces of the 23 are not known until this day. Gershon left a farewell letter to his friends in Yagur, in which he wrote: “… I lived a beautiful and honest life. And if I am in mortal danger, I would like to go with the same courage and readiness I have had so far in my life. It is not to be regretted and despised, on the contrary – I have to be proud of my responsible role … ” In his kibbutz a swimming pool was established in his memory, and his name was commemorated in the book” Secret Shield “and in a memorial booklet published by Kibbutz Yagur, and the other 23 Yordei Hasira.