Rab, Shimshon (Sha’ani)

Son of Rivka and Mordechai, was born on September 24, 1926, in the city of Komarno, southern Slovakia. When he was 18, the Nazis took him to a forced labor camp. When he tried to escape from there, he was sent to the Mauthausen camp and released only with the defeat of Germany. When he returned to his hometown he no longer found his family alive, but he learned that his two surviving sisters had immigrated to Israel. Shimshon went to a DP camp in Germany and boarded the illegal immigrant ship Yagur, which was captured by the British and sent to Cyprus. After five months he immigrated to Eretz Israel on December 15, 1946. He found his sisters at Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet, but he turned to the city and worked as a locksmith in Tel Aviv. He strove to become involved in the country and was interested in the problems of Jewish faith and Hebrew. Shimshon found a girlfriend and was about to start a family in Israel. At the beginning of the War of Independence, he volunteered for the army and served as a company medic in the Golani Brigade. Shimshon participated in the battles of Mishmar HaEmek, Lagoon and Sjara. Attacks by the Kaukji forces on Sejera continued even after the truce was declared, and when he rushed to help the wounded before the front line fell, on Wednesday, June 11, 1948, he was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Afula.