Markowitz, Yosef

Yosef, son of Rivka and Avraham Markowitz, was born in 1931, in Piatra-Neametz, Romania. He was taken to various labor camps and tortured. After liberation, he was in a DP camp in Germany and at the beginning of the War of Independence he immigrated to Israel on the ship “Sea Conquers”, which arrived in 1948. He saw himself as the pioneer of the family that paved the way to Palestine. To his parents, who waited in Romania for their aliyah, he wrote, “I am fighting for the liberation of all the people and I hope we will win. And then we will all meet in the land of our forefathers.” Yosef fought in the expanses of the Negev and fell on the 5th of Tevet 5709 (6.1.1949) in Rafah, when the shelter in which he slept was collapsed. He was buried in Nir Am. His parents arrived in Israel after his death. On November 30, 1950, he was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Haifa.