Lakovsky, Yaacov

Son of Liba and David. He was born in the village of Wilkobysi in Lithuania, and he was educated in the Hebrew Gymnasium. In 1935 Yaacov immigrated to Israel and joined the settlement of Gan Yavneh, was one of the first settlers to settle the orchards, and was one of the “police officers” who were allowed to carry weapons under the authority of the British Mandate in order to protect the inhabitants of the settlement, which was surrounded by hostile Arab villages whose residents harassed them frequently. With the outbreak of World War II, Yaacov saw the need to help the Jews in Europe as much as he could and decided to volunteer for the only framework that enabled the Jews of the Land of Israel to help. In 1941, Yaakov left his home to join the British Army in Gan Yavneh, enlisted in the Western Desert, and later in Greece, following the advance of the Nazi army. On April 29, 1941, In the city of Kalamata, Greece, along with another 1,350 Israeli land fighters. Yaacov was captured with his friends and wandered among various POW camps until he reached Silesia, Germany, where he was employed in hard labor in coal mines. After more than two years of suffering and torture, Yaacov managed to escape from the soil of Nazi Germany, with a fervor. His mastery of the German language from his high school years and his outward appearance: his blue eyes, the complexion of his skin and fair hair helped him escape. Yaacov navigated his way by crossing the lines, returned to Gan Yavneh, fixed up his home, designed and built a chicken coop and a “training house” for chicks, and continued working for a living in the orchards of the region, He managed to smuggle out the first machine-gun from the British camp Hatzor near Gan Yavneh which served the organization in the region. In 1946 Yaacov married Bilha, who also assisted the Haganah in the area, both as a paramedic and in smuggling illegal immigrants into the area. This activity was carried out even when she was in advanced pregnancy. She gave birth to a son David. Yaacov was very zealous for Jewish work. Every day, Arab peddlers passed by with carts loaded with fruit and vegetables, but he made sure to purchase only Jewish goods, and demanded that his wife and friends do the same even though the costs were higher. In the month of Shvat 5708, intelligence sources arrived at the headquarters of the Haganah about the preparations of a gang of Arab rioters to attack the residents of Gan Yavneh. On Friday, the 19th of Shevat, January 30, 1948, an abandoned packing house in an orchard near the settlement, which housed the raw materials of the packing house for the purpose of building fortifications,and mechanical equipment was supposed to serve as a hiding place for the rioters, this building was demolished and the building collapsed on Yaakov and killed him. He was survived by a wife – Bilha and a 5-month-old son – David On August 29, 2004, the Gan Yavneh Council decided to call the pine grove at the corner of Hanasi and Independence Streets, not far from the house where he lived. The grove was inaugurated in the presence of Yaakov’s family on Memorial Day for IDF Fallen Soldiers on the eve of Israel’s 57th Independence Day