Schwartz, Zvi-Yehuda (Red)

Son of Yaffe-Sheindel and Moshe-Yehoshua, was born on November 15, 1929 in the city of Munkács, Czechoslovakia, to a poor and religiously observant family. First he studied in the room and then for a while in the general elementary school. When he was ten, his parents sent him to the Hebrew Gymnasium in the city. Upon entering the Gymnasium he joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and was one of its activists. When the situation worsened, the Jews of Carpatho-Russia moved to Budapest and were brought into one of the charitable institutions to study a profession. Yehuda Tzvi worked as an apprentice in a refrigerator factory. When the Germans entered Hungary in March 1944, he was forced to wander from place to place. In one search he was caught and sent to a labor company. After suffering and torture, he escaped under the fire of his captors and hid in the bunkers of the Zionist underground in Budapest. After the Russians occupied Hungary, he returned to Munkács to look for his parents. There he found his brother and they both decided to immigrate to Israel. Zvi joined a youth company of Hashomer Hatzair, and after many wanderings he boarded the illegal immigrant ship. He was caught and brought with his friends to a detention camp on Cyprus for illegal immigrants to Mandatory Palestine. Where he took a course for instructors and became a Palmach commander. In Cyprus he devoted himself to the movement secretariat until he arrived on the shores of the country on 24.9.1947 and was sent with the youth company to Kibbutz Negba, where he met his brother, with whom he escaped from the Diaspora. He was a courageous, alert boy who bore many hardships. When he came to Israel, he broke up with a nightmare and moved to the country. In Kibbutz Negba he began to study the construction work. During the War of Independence he stood in the defensive positions of Kibbutz Negba. Was a superb first-rate fighter with a rare courage that amazed all his friends. On the morning of the 12th of Tammuz 5707 (19.7.1948), some 12 hours after the announcement of the truce, he went with his friend to the no-man’s land to gather weapons and a spoils of war left by the Egyptians. Yehuda Tzvi got on a mine, was critically wounded and died after severe torture. He was brought to eternal rest in a grave in the cemetery of Negba.