Meidzinsky, Moshe-Chaim

Son of Hinda and Ze’ev, was born in 1921 in the city of Pdebush, Poland. He studied in the “cheder” and “yeshiva” and at the same time in a Polish elementary school. In 1933 his parents moved to Lodz, but Chaim remained in Pdebosz, continued his studies in Yeshivah and moved closer to Hashomer Hadati. When he also came to Lodz in 1938, he took part in the movement’s activities. In Lodz he also learned the knitting profession and began to work. When the Second World War broke out, his parents allowed him to part with them and he crossed the border and came to Vilna. Here he joined a group of refugees from Hashomer Hadati on the way, then moved with a group of friends to the city of Panevezys in Lithuania and they founded the group “Lamerhav”. At the same time, with the first deportations, the family, who remained in Poland, was transferred to Gorlitz, in Western Galicia, and destroyed by the Nazis. In 1941 he immigrated with his friends to Israel and worked in Tel Aviv in the knitting profession, but by nature he continued to live in the village and to work in the land. Moshe-Haim left the city and moved to the “Jordan” organization of “HaPoel Hamizrachi”, which sat in its houses in the Jordan Valley. From there he moved to Kfar Etzion in 1944, where his movement and training comrades were from Poland and Lithuania. He was absorbed quickly in the company. He excelled in his work and his perseverance, and succeeded especially in building terraces and orchards. Special attention was paid to cultivating neighborly relations with the Arabs and to their linguistic learning. He often visited Arab villages and acquired many friends among them. When the War of Independence broke out after the United Nations General Assembly decided to partition the country, he was one of the defenders of the Gush, and at the time he married his girlfriend Sarah, who tried to invite his friends from the Arab village to his wedding and was almost murdered when he came there to deliver the invitation. He operated with a Lewis machine gun in the southern positions of the camp and fell upon the outbreak of the enemy’s armored forces to Kfar Etzion on Wednesday, May 13, 1948. That same day his wife Sara also fell. On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949), he was transferred, together with the other victims of the Gush, to the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.