Milchinsky, Hanan

Son of Zelma and Siegfried. He was born on March 19, 1914 in Frankfurt, Germany. As a child he was orphaned by his mother. At the age of fifteen his father died and he grew up with his grandmother and stepmother. Already in his childhood he became acquainted with the Zionist idea and later developed a socialist outlook. He adhered to this view even after Germany began harassing socialist movements. In 1933 he went to Denmark for pioneering training and after returning to Germany began working to save money to immigrate to Israel. He immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1937, joined Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha and waited for his friends who were about to immigrate to Israel and establish a new nucleus. The members of this nucleus later emerged on land in the Menashe Mountains, and the new settlement was first named Ibn Yitzhak and then Gilad. He joined the Ahdut Ha’avoda party and joined the Ahdut ha-‘Avoda movement at the outbreak of World War II, but his kibbutz was unable to release additional members from those who had already enlisted and Hanan served as the Labor Center. He was sent first to Egypt, then to Europe, and at the end of the war he served as a Zionist emissary abroad. He founded a training kibbutz for the Jews of Bergen-Belsen, did the founding of Hechalutz in Dusseldorf and worked in France to bring Jews to Palestine. On 11 Sivan, June 10, 1946, during his service, he died on European soil and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Antwerp, Belgium. He left a wife and two sons. His name was commemorated in Yedioth Ahronoth on behalf of the Histadrut.