Silberstein, Chanoch (Henry)

Son of Bracha and Shmuel, was born on September 18, 1927, in the city of Bordeaux, France. He was a handsome boy and when he was five months old, he received a beauty prize at a children’s exhibition in France. When he was nine months old, his parents immigrated to Israel and after completing elementary school, he continued to study at the vocational school of the Hebrew Technion in Haifa. After a year he had to stop his studies because of a serious illness. The family got in debt to heal the boy, who was completely cured. Hanoch began working at the Vulcan factory, first as a trainee and later as a metalworker, while continuing his studies at evening classes at the Hebrew Technion. He was a member of the Ha – Shomer ha – Tsa’ir youth movement and taught there. In 1944 he joined the Palmach and joined the “Tzabar” nucleus in Beit Zera, where he served for two years and held various positions in the Haganah underground activities, and completed a weapons and commanding course with the nucleus of Kibbutz Revadim in Gush Etzion. And the detachment of Gush Etzion participated in escorting caravans from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and on January 13, 1948 Hanoch fell on a convoy that was traveling from Gush Etzion to Jerusalem. At the entrance to Bethlehem, the convoy encountered the checkpoint and was attacked. Hanoch went down to dismantle the checkpoint and was wounded. A wounded man got on the car and fell from it during the retreat. A few hours later his charred body was found on the side of the road. He was buried in Gush Etzion. His father, Shmuel, fell in the War of Independence from a mine explosion about six months later, when he was fencing an outpost near Megiddo. On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949) he was brought to eternal rest in a mass grave together with the other victims of the Gush, at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.