Orbach, David
Son of Rivka and Avraham. Was born on September 30, 1906 in the city of Chrzanow, Poland to a well-to-do family with many children. After graduating high school he entered the high school of engineering in Katowice and graduated with honors. On the side of his studies, he paid attention to the questions of Judaism and Zionism and saw as the purpose of his life the immigration to Eretz Israel. In 1935 he immigrated to Israel in a group of illegal immigrants he organized from Poland and headed it. However, after five hardships, only five members of the Israeli navy managed to reach the shores of the country, wearing only a swimsuit. The rest perished on the way. In Israel he could not find a place to work as an engineer and to support his family, a wife and two sons, worked as a laborer in orchards and on roads. In August 1940 he accepted the call of the National Institutions and enlisted in the British Army’s transport corps to the Jewish Company 462. On May 1, 1943, he was on a ship that transported soldiers from his company from Alexandria to Malta. The ship was bombed and sunk by German planes and 140 of these soldiers descended into the depths, David among them. In the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a ship-shaped memorial was erected in memory of the missing, and next to it is a water pool with the names of the fallen engraved on the bottom. This fallen hero is a “maklan” – a hero whose burial place is unknown.
