Kramer, Chanoch (Heinz)

Son of Yoni and Max, was born on the 18th of Adar, 5703 (6.4.1923) in the city of Stuttgart, Germany. His father was an ophthalmologist. Hanoch attended a German elementary school in a socialist spirit. The family immigrated to Israel on October 4, 1934, and Hanoch was sent to the children’s company at Kibbutz Beit Alfa and stayed there for 4 years. From November 1939 to July 1941, he studied at the Kadouri Agricultural School where he learned to love agricultural work – in the village and in the garden, in the chicken coop and in orchards, as a shepherd among herds of sheep and near bee hives. At school, he worked hard on his studies and especially excelled in practical work. In the summer of 1941 he completed his studies and moved to Nahariya to work in the farm established by his parents. He aspired to join the kibbutz, since the work on his parents’ small farm did not satisfy him, but he could not leave them and remained there for about six years. In those days he read extensively, studied the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and later joined the Communist Party. His party friends admired him for the clarity of his thought, his devotion to his aspirations and his faith in the front and destiny of man. At the end of the war he wanted to study agriculture at a university in California and began to prepare for the matriculation examinations with the help of the British Institute. After completing his examination work, the War of Independence broke out. He was pacifist in his view and hated the war, but with the same consistency he joined the ranks of the defenders and served in the Carmeli Brigade. His company was stationed in Nahariya and its job was to secure the “accident,” the boat that transported the supplies to the isolated Western Galilee. With the opening of the road and the first attack on Tarshiha, Kaukji’s stronghold, his department attempted to enter Sakhnin. Hanoch was then a chemist, a saboteur and a infantryman, all according to what was required of him. In the first combat operation he took part in, on the 17th of Tammuz 5707 (24 July 1948), around Shfaram, he was sent to bring ammunition and this mission did not return. The ammunition box remained in his hand when the enemy ball caught up. He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Nahariya.