Rosenfeld, Yechiel (Hilik)
Son of Rivka and Yosef, was born on January 31, 1962, in the city of Opatow Kielce, Poland. His father was a Chasid, and the Rebbe’s influence was evident at home. He was a boy of a pleasant nature. At the age of 14, he joined the Bnei Akiva movement and later became a leader in the National Fund and with the invasion of Poland by the Nazi armies Yechiel became active in the Zionist work. At the beginning of 1941 he was transferred to a labor camp where he managed to rally the youth around him. After the liberation, when he found no remnant from his family, he moved to Lodz and married and devoted himself to educating the children who survived the camps and monasteries. In the spring of 1946, his wife immigrated to Israel and joined Kfar Etzion, where their son, Yosef Mordechai was born. At the end of 1946, Yechiel boarded the Latrun ship and was interned in Cyprus and in the spring of 1946, he was able to reach his group and his wife. Yechiel continued to take part in public activities in the halutzi-religious youth groups. At the beginning of the War of Independence, Yechiel worked in the arms depot and his wife was a paramedic. They sent their only son to Jerusalem and they remained with the defenders of the place. On the eve of the fall of Kfar Etzion (May 13, 1948), the two of them fell on guard duty near the German monastery building, when the enemy soldiers broke into the village and defeated them. After his death, Yechiel was awarded the rank of lieutenant. On the 25th of Cheshvan 5706 (17.11.1949) he was transferred to eternal rest with the rest of the victims of the Gush to the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
