Shfitskopf, Dov (Berl)
Son of Yaffa and Ze’ev, was born on May 29, 1920 in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. He is a member of a religiously observant family of artisans. He learned in his childhood in the room and afterward in the elementary school. As a young man he had to stop his studies and help his father support the family. In 1934 he joined Hashomer Hadati, where he spent his free time after a hard day’s work. He studied and participated in all the lectures and talks that took place in the nest. In 1938 he left his home and joined the “Obadiah” group in Slabkow and later moved to the Hashomer Hadati group that organized in Bialystok and from there moved to Lodz. In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he returned to Warsaw for a short period and left with a group of friends from Bialystok to Lithuania and arrived in Vilna, where he joined his comrades from the hachshara in Poland and together they founded the “Lamerhav” kibbutz in Ponevezh. He was discovered as an active and devoted friend who quickly adapts to any work. His relatives in America wanted him to come to them at the time, but he refused. In early 1941, immigration to Israel began from Lithuania via the Soviet Union. He did not have a visa, but he managed to get to Moscow, where he was caught and voluntarily found in the Anders Army. Dov arrived in Israel in the month of Tammuz, 1941. He left the Polish army, was arrested for a while in the Atlit detention camp, and immediately joined the “Etzel Hamizrachi” Where he worked in the carpentry workshop and worked as a machine gunner in the Palmach class. On May 4, 1948, when the outpost was attacked in the “mukhtar saddle” and his friend was injured, he ran to the farm with another friend under a shower of shots, brought a stretcher and passed the injured friend over. In the last battle of the Gush, on May 12, 1948, he spent an entire day in an ambush facing the enemy’s armor, returning to the village and working from various positions as a machine gunner. On the eve of the 17th of Iyar 5708 (17.11.1949) he was transferred, together with the rest of Gush Etzion, to eternal rest in the cemetery Military presence on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
