Son of Nissim and Esther, was born in 1921 in the town of Arte in Greece. In 1941, Greece was conquered by the German armies. At this point Joseph’s parents were no longer among the living. Joseph, like many young men, fled to the mountains and joined the partisans who hid in the mountains around the city of Agrinion. On the night of March 24, 1944, the Nazis rounded up all the inhabitants of the town of Arte and together with the Jews of the nearby towns were loaded onto wagons on their way to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 85% of the 375 inhabitants of the town perished. Professor Michael found in his book “The illusion of safty” that his mother, a resident of Arte and a friend of Yosef’s mother, met Joseph as an underground soldier guarding the bridge in the forest near the city of Agrinion and told him that the Nazis had destroyed the entire town. At the end of the war, Yosef apparently went to a DP camp in Patras and later to a “training kibbutz” in the Athens area. From there he emigrated to Palestine, apparently on the ship of Berl Katznelson (Demetrius). On November 17, 1945, the ship set sail. There were 211 people on board. 204 immigrants from Greece, two from Romania, one from Hungary, three from Poland and one from Yugoslavia. 131 of the immigrants were from concentration camps, 71 partisans, nine former prisoners of war and 15 youths who immigrated as part of the Youth Aliyah. For two days the ship was in a storm. On the 22nd she arrived at Shefayim Beach. The fishermen were brought to the beach between Sidna Ali and Shefayim with the aid of four Palyam sailboats, and the fishermen were arrested by the Palyam, but one fisherman escaped and reported to the authorities. The two crew members were interned in the Latrun prison for six months and were interned in Atlit for two weeks, until they were given ID cards and then distributed among kibbutzim in the Beit She’an Valley where they worked in the vegetable garden and fish. To Kibbutz Massilot, and in 1946 Yosef moved to Kiryat Motzkin in the apartment A member of the same period, Eliahu Cohen, says that he had a sense of humor and was nicknamed Pedlakis on February 1, 1948. On February 1, 1948, during the War of Independence, he joined the army and served in the Carmeli Brigade. Yosef was in his back and was hospitalized for 20 days at Carmel Hospital in Haifa. Upon his recovery, his friends asked him to return to the unit on the grounds that he had not yet recovered, but he insisted on returning to fight with his friends. The battle for the liberation of Jenin was one of the most difficult, bitter and multi-cavalier battles in the War of Independence. The desire to draw Jordanian forces north, thus relieving the pressure on Jerusalem and the center, is necessary to reduce the danger threatening the Jezreel Valley and to open the way to the mountain. These three factors led to the opening of the campaign to liberate Jenin. On May 26, 1948, the Carmeli Brigade, which included the 21st and 22nd Battalions, set out to conquer the eastern and western hills of the city. In the morning, the Arabs of the nearby villages and the enemy forces gathered in the police building began to attack Carmeli’s forces. When it seemed that the attack had subsided, an Iraqi battalion that had been parked in Nablus came to Jenin and heard from the refugees of Jenin about the Israeli occupation. The Iraqi battalion began shelling and attacking the 21st Battalion. The reserve forces entered the city to reduce the pressure from Battalion 21 and found an abandoned city whose inhabitants had fled before the fighting began. The 21st Battalion retreated under Iraqi pressure and in the evening a general withdrawal order was issued, leaving behind the dead and seriously wounded. Yosef was also wounded in the battle and remained in the area. On the 20 th of Av 5710 (3.8.1950), after two years in which the soldiers of the battle were missing, was announcedThey were brought to the land by the then Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Shlomo Goren, and the staff of the military rabbinate.45 The victims of the battle, including Yosef Lahana, were brought to eternal rest in a mass grave on Mount Herzl and in Haifa. He was followed by Gershon and Zimbula in France.
