Koter, David

Son of Heina and Eliezer. He was born on October 27, 1905 in Botoshen, Romania. In his youth, he joined the Maccabi movement, where he was educated and approached the Zionist idea. In Romania he studied bookkeeping, married a wife and had two sons. The marriage did not work out and the couple separated. David married a second wife, a widow, and adopted her two daughters. In 1940 he immigrated with his wife, with one of the sons and daughters to Eretz Israel. David enlisted in the British Army and was assigned to the 462 Company of the Transport Corps. He served in Egypt and Beirut and at the end of April 1943 he went on board the ship “Aryanpura” from Egypt to Malta to participate in the Allied invasion of Europe. On 27 Nissan 5703 (1.5.1943), a German reconnaissance plane was flying over the convoy of ships. The plane bombed the convoy. The Aryanpura suffered direct and drowning damage. One hundred and forty members of Company 462 perished in the disaster, David among them. He left a wife, three sons and two adopted daughters and parents. His son Ephraim fell in battle in Latrun during the War of Independence. David was immortalized in “The Book of Volunteering,” in the Yizkor book of the Jabotinsky Institute and in the “Yearbook of the Journalists”, 1946. At Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a monument was erected in the form of a ship and next to it is a small water pool, with the names of all the company’s fallen engraved on the bottom. This fallen hero is a “maklan” – a hero whose burial place is unknown.