Popovitz, Chaim

Son of Sarah and Shmuel, was born in 1924 in the city of Urdia, Transylvania. After completing an elementary school in his hometown and studying “sitting” until his 20 th birthday. He was a member of the Bnei Akiva youth movement. His parents and four of his ten brothers and sisters were murdered by the Nazis. He himself was a soldier in the Hungarian army, arrested by the Germans, escaped twice and was caught, and in the third was released by the Red Army. At the end of the war, he arrived in Italy with the “Bnei Akiva” group and in 1946 he immigrated to Israel on the illegal immigrant ship Wedgwood (where he met his sister Leah, who had qualified for him in “Customs Nordoi”). For a while he lived in Pardes Hannah and from there moved to Kfar Ata. Worked in a building, and more recently in a tile factory. As a member of HaPoel Hamizrachi, he was preparing to go to the settlements, but in the meantime the War of Independence broke out and Haim enlisted. Served as a machine gunner in one of the Carmeli Brigade battalions. He participated in the defense of Ramat Yochanan, the conquest of Haifa and the battles in the Upper Galilee. Haim fell in the defense of Manara on the 20th of Tishrei 5709 (October 23, 1948.) He was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Rosh Pina.