Schwartz, Josef (Jancsi)

Son of Zoltan and Adit. He was born on October 6, 1948, in Timisoara, Romania. The family immigrated to Israel in 1958. Josef and his sister were registered with the Aloni-Yitzhak educational institution, but there they did not find their place and returned to Givatayim where he completed his elementary studies at the AD Gordon School and began to attend high school He was a member of Hapoel Tel Aviv since 1961. He participated in all the activities of the Association in the aforementioned sports fields and achieved good achievements in competitions in many sports fields Which he would have devoted a great deal of time to. In the last years of his life, he spent most of his vacations in the Usha group, where he practiced training for swimming. He was also interested in history, philosophy, the Far East and Spanish music. He was drafted into the army in February 1968, but shortly before his enlistment, his parents left the country temporarily for work, but Josef did not join them and his military service was already at the gate, and he decided to remain a little proud and Simcha because, In his letters to them he repeatedly stressed that he lacked nothing, that he enjoyed and loved the service – and he received everything in a spirit of sport, and in his last letter, which he wrote a few hours before he fell, he asked: “I have fulfilled my obligation.” Some of them would stop worrying about him because he felt himself among his friends: he was modest and quiet, closed and self-contained, a guy who always sought the corner of his nose When he returned from the long and difficult road he would enter the tent, sit down on his bed and pull out a packet of chocolates from there – and his friend testified to the other that they had fallen because “he would have done for everyone” Good for the soul. “” The guys saw that he was Simcha and Simcha, too, because they knew everything could be overcome, they learned it from him, he excelled at the love of life and joy, he loved to laugh and was proud of his good physical talent. After his basic training, the unit’s commanding staff decided to put Josef on the list of outstanding soldiers and send him to a squad commander’s course because “he must be a commander of the army “One of the officers said,” You must not give it up. ” But he did not show any greater enthusiasm for not looking, as he put it, for glittering fig leaves. “I can contribute to the IDF as a regular private soldier,” he said, and despite the many hiccups and talks, Josef was not persuaded to join a combat unit that blocked the eastern border of Israel for days and nights. And he knew that they were giving him full training, but he did not manage to complete one year of compulsory service, because on the 11th of March 1968 he fell in the Hamadiyya farm from enemy shelling when a direct hit was caused during the exchange of fire between the Jordanians The commander of his unit in the letter of condolence to his parents wrote, among other things: “He was a friend and a friend to his comrades, Kadio admired him for his honesty and dedication and love of life. During his service in the unit he had many friends who were in pain over his downfall. His cheerfulness and good spirit always had a good atmosphere for everything around him. His death was a severe blow to all of us. “Hapoel Tel Aviv organizes an annual competition in his memory.