Papo, Yehuda

Son of Sultana and Jacob. He was born on the 3rd of Nisan, 1913, in Varna, Bulgaria, and at the age of thirteen he was one of the founders of the local branch of Hashomer Hatzair in his city and was very fond of the campers and instructors. He was a member of the “Tel Hai” group in Hadera and had immigrants from Bulgaria and Poland, where he worked in agriculture and was a partner in the development of factories, driving, and outstanding talent for inventing and repairing machines, and his friends described him as “tall, broad-shouldered, Black forest of hair and big eyes, black and shiny and dark. He laughed a lot because he was happy and cheerful … “In 1938 the Tel Hai group merged with the Masilah group and Yehuda joined the group on the land in the Beit She’an Valley. I told him about his mother and sister: “… We joked about the questions of life and death … We argued about the beauty of the country, whether it was beautiful or not … Yehuda liked to comment on anything. He was immediately prepared to raise his eyebrows, stinging, sometimes mocking, but always friendly.” On 9 Kislev (2.12.1938) Yehuda and two of his friends, all three members of the Haganah, set out to guard the towering hill facing the Gilboa Mountains at the southern end of the Nir David fields. On their way they met an ambush by the Abu Dura gang, which was located in the high grass of the stream and the swamp on the way to the mound. The three fell from the first burst of fire that hit them from very close range. Yehuda was 25 years old when he fell. He left a wife, mother and sister. All three were brought to eternal rest in a mass grave in the cemetery in Nir David. The mound were they were killed was called Mitzpeh Hashlosha. Members of Kibbutz Mesilot published a booklet in memory of Yehuda.