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Marmor, David

Marmor, David


Son of Reizel and Yaakov, was born in 1923 in the city of Tornella, Carpathian Russia (Czechoslovakia) to working parents who are observant. He studied Torah and Talmud from his childhood, and when he was 12 he was admitted to the famous Shurani yeshiva and continued on to Balchdirmat. Where he developed in spirit and became the first student in Yeshiva. David loved to go out to the forest near his house and to retreat into the countryside, to be followed by religious introspection. He loved sports and was a great football player. During the “Bin-Zmanim” period, when the yeshiva students returned home to rest a little, he worked hard and helped his parents. He was always cheerful and was called David the Badchan. During the German occupation he was imprisoned in the ghetto and with all the men in the ghetto he was sent to a Hungarian labor camp. There, too, he was a central figure in society. In the camp he contracted pneumonia and was transferred to a military hospital, where he was sent to Germany. The Russians were already close, and as the convoy passed by a remote village, he fled and hid with a peasant for several weeks until the Russians arrived. He was the first to arrive in his town after the Holocaust. At home he found destruction and gentiles who hated Jews. He decided to take revenge on the oppressors of his people and his family and with the help of the Russians arrested and punished several Nazis. David did not stop there and joined the Czech army (Legion from Russia) and fought in the front against the Germans. At the end of the war he moved to Budapest. There he met his sisters who had returned from a concentration camp in Germany. He did not return with them to the Czech Republic because he decided to immigrate to Palestine. He again crossed the borders from Hungary to Austria and Germany and joined the Nacham (United Pioneering Youth) group, which included quite a few religious people, who were called “religious Nacham”. In December 1945, the group set out for Bergen-Belsen and tried to reach a pioneering concentration in Belgium in order to immigrate to Eretz Israel, but were caught and detained for several months in a prison in Hamburg together with German prisoners. Suffered hardships and hunger, and were interrogated harshly about the organization of illegal immigration. After much effort they were released and transferred to Landsberg. Where the religious met Yitzhak son of Sira of Kfar Etzion and heard about the religious group. On another illegal immigration route they reached Italy. David joined the “Bnei Akiva” group and together they founded the “Ayala” training group in Vilamadona and stayed there for 4 months. David was well absorbed in society and discovered cultural-Torah activity. During the month of Elul 1946 he immigrated to Israel on the “Yordei Hasira” boat and was deported to Cyprus. There, too, he did not fall down and wrote letters of encouragement to his comrades in the camps in Germany. He studied Hebrew and used his time to study. After a few weeks the boy was a “sabra” for everything. The emissaries from Eretz Israel recognized his educational talents and influenced them as a Bnei Akiva counselor in the religious youth village in Cyprus. At the same time, he continued his Jewish studies in the Ayala group. In February 1947 he was released from Cyprus and immigrated to Israel. He joined Kfar Etzion and easily entered the kibbutz life. He was a diligent and well-built wagon driver, and one of the group’s favorite members. The more he stayed there the more he called him. “God is the one who brought me a dream, and he will help me to take root in this holy land,” he wrote in his letters. He was active in the Palmach, participated in training and was assigned to guard and security positions, during the battles he was a liaison in the western part of the village and he carried out the tasks with great agility and dedication, (13.5.1948). On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (November 17, 1949) he was transferred to the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem with the rest of Gush Etzion.

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