Ruchin, Amnon

Son of Zahava and Yaakov, members of Kibbutz Ramat Rahel near Jerusalem. He was born on the 7th of Tishrei, 5749 (7.10.1928) in the kibbutz. In the kibbutz institutions he went through all the stages of education and continued his studies in the joint school of Tel Yosef-Ein Harod. On the recommendation of his teachers, he moved to mechanical training at the “Amal” vocational school in Jerusalem. Amnon excelled in good judgment as a good student and his works were highly appreciated in the exhibition of student works. When he finished his first class (two years old), he was arrested on the “Black Sabbath” (29.6.1946) with his father and taken to Latrun and then to Rafah. While in detention he often practiced gymnastics and instructed his friends to work with all kinds of scrap. His mother was reassured by his saying: “Even Latrun in Eretz Yisrael.” After his release he received his diploma, was accepted as a member of the kibbutz and worked in a metal workshop. Amnon was accepted to the Haganah while he was still a student in the kibbutz and then at the Amal school. He was considered “like a friend” in the Palmach training in Ramat Rachel and spent most of his leisure time with his men, and in the summer of 1947 he was sent to a squad commanders’ course. From the beginning of the War of Independence he enlisted with all the members of the kibbutz to the Palmach, and despite his expression of his strong desire to go to combat service, he was loaned for a year by the Palmach to a training service in the Jerusalem District. He objected to this, but obeyed the order and instructed. In December 1947, he enlisted in the “Michmash” battalion of the Etzioni Brigade and took part in operations in south Jerusalem (Beit Safafa, Tire-Bahar, disrupting Arab transport on the Bethlehem road). Amnon went to the course in obedience to the order, although he could not agree to “sit idly while his friends were fighting,” and in a convoy that left before Passover 5708, he returned to Jerusalem as an authorized officer. Again they wanted to employ him in training, and he insisted on his right to serve in combat. For several days he ran around like an “officer without soldiers,” because his platoon was in Gush Etzion, and in no other occupation he joined the defenders of Ramat Rachel, his birthplace. He was finally called to active duty because a platoon was found for him. The day after the departure of the British he was sent to command the breakout of Talpiot into the Allenby camp, in order to conquer him from the Arabs whom the British had given him. The explosion of the fence did not succeed, the armored vehicle Amnon drove in. He sank into a ditch and got tangled in a barbed wire. Heavy enemy machine guns penetrated the armored vehicle and hit two people. Amnon took his men from the armored vehicle to a shelter, bandaged the wounded man, and returned alone to the armored vehicle to take down the MG machine gun. He stayed in it. In the course of this operation, he took his head out of the armored window and then fell with a bullet wound in his temple on May 15, 1948. He was brought to rest in the Ramat Rachel cemetery, Ramat Rachel in the Battle. “