Kutner, Tzvi
Tzvi, son of Mirel and Lipa Kutner, was born in 1911 in Chjanov, Galicia. His father died when he was young, and Tzvi grew up in a Zionist atmosphere in his grandfather’s home in Bedzin, Poland. In elementary school, he was referred to as the “Galician Brain” because of his sharpness. Out of a desire to help his mother and his sisters, he stopped his studies and worked as a dedicated and talented clerk. During his adolescence he joined the Gordonia movement in his city and was one of its best activists and instructors. In the early years he went to the Hachshara and played a major role there. Tzvi overcame the family difficulties that delayed his immigration and arrived in Israel in 1932. For a time he worked in orchards and was later accepted as a member of Degania Bet. He devoted himself to the work of the kibbutz and he was liked by all the members. In 1939 he went on a mission to train a Zionist pioneering training group in the Netherlands. When the Nazi invaders approached, he refused to abandon his apprentices during their siege, was taken to a civilian prison camp near his family’s quarters, and managed to see his mother and sisters before being taken to an extermination camp. In his letters to the group, which were severely censored, he was always interested in the state of the agriculture, and in one of his letters near the end of the war he hinted to his friends of the proximity of the German defeat. “Gouri is seriously ill …” He returned to Degania Bet and resumed his duties. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he fulfilled his obligation to guard and defend. The Syrians invaded the Jordan Valley on May 16, 1948, took control of several of the area’s outposts, but were stopped by our forces in Tzemach. On May 18 the Syrians launched an attack on Tzemach with the help of artillery and tanks. Our forces did not withstand the intensity of the Syrian attack. At first, the town of Tzemach fell, and finally the police station, and the defenders retreated under Syrian fire towards Degania. Tzvi went out with his brigade to Tzemach to stop the Syrian enemy’s tanks with Molotov cocktails and he fell there on 9 Iyar, 18 May 1948. He was brought to eternal rest in the cemetery in Degania B.
