Pearl, Herzl

Herzl, son of Rivka and Avraham Yitzchak Pearl was born in 1927 in Czechoslovakia. He studied in yeshiva until age 14. In 1942 Herzl went to Budapest to work and joined the Dror Habonim movement. A year later he was sent to a Hungarian labor camp and in September 1944, he was liberated by Yugoslav partisans and joined them. At the beginning of 1945, he left Hungary with the hope of emigrating to Palestine via Bucharest. In Santa Maria, Italy, he supervised a group of children and acted as their father and teacher. Finally, he arrived in Israel and joined Kibbutz Mahanayim. There he was given the role of field guard. Herzl was a hearty man, calm, fair-minded and had no hesitation or fear. After the “Night of the Bridges”, June 17, 1946, the British searched the Jewish settlements near the places of operation. The most difficult search took place in Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, which was surrounded by army and police units. On the 19th of Sivan, June 18, 1946, communication with it was severed. Herzl, together with hundreds of Jews from the surrounding communities, helped the besieged kibbutz. The British army opened fire on them, killing three, including Herzl. He was 19 years old. He was laid to rest in Mahanayim, leaving behind a mother and sister, all who remained from his family, the rest of whom perished in the Holocaust. Herzl was commemorated in memorial pamphlets issued by Kibbutz Mahanayim, as well as in the book Nachshoni Hachola.