Mandelkorn, Nissan (Nico)

He was born in 1907 in Blatvia to a religious family. In 1924 he attended a lecture by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Riga, the capital of Latvia, and the things he heard led to a turning point in his way of life. He joined the Beitar youth movement and absorbed all his energy and strength as a commander, and after he moved to the center of the Betar branch in Riga, he immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1933. In 1935 he joined the Tel-Aviv, and as a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi gave information to the organization that he had acquired in his capacity as a policeman, mainly in matters related to the plan. In the summer of 1940 he moved to the side of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization in Israel), which later became the Lehi Fighters of Herut Israel (Lehi). In 1942 he was arrested by the British police on suspicion that he was a Lehi member and was held for two years in the Latrun detention camp, and was ill-treated, and there was evidence that the Arab doctors who were treating him were instructed to aggravate his condition. On 17 Iyar, 10.5.1944, he died of his illness, but only a few attended his funeral because his friends from the organization refrained from being exposed to the authorities. He was laid to rest in the cemetery In Nahalat Yitzhak. His name was immortalized in Lehi’s writings, in the Encyclopedia of Pioneers and Builders, and an obituary in his memory was published in the newspaper Herut.