Simon, Ellie

Ellie, son of Gita and Todros Otto Simon, was born in 1923, in Mannheim, Germany. He was arrested and interned in a concentration camp in the city of Sachsenhausen. In 1938, he made aliyah to Israel and joined the religious kibbutz “Rodges” and was hired to work in the garage. He served in the British Army, and later served in the Jewish Brigade, where he worked in the Haifa municipality and was a member of the Haganah. Ellie served as a machine gunner and saboteur and blew up houses in the Halisa neighborhood and in Wadi Rushmiya in Haifa at the outbreak of the War of Independence. He served in the “Carmeli” Brigade, was sent as a reinforcement to Tirat Zvi, and from there moved to Ramot Naftali (Wingate Organization) with the Haifa Infantry Division, At Ramot Naftali, he was wounded in several parts of his body and sent to the hospital in the village of Szold, but he avoided it and on his own injected morphine to relieve his pain and went out at night to find the land around the farm. Because he had little experience of such a task and while his mind was blurred by the morphine, one of the mines exploded in his hand. His hands and legs were amputated, he was blinded by both eyes and was burned all over. Ellie was brought to Ramot Naftali and died there in severe agony on the 29th of Nissan 5708 (May 8, 1948). He was buried in Hulata. On March 2, 1950, he was transferred to eternal rest in the military cemetery in Haifa.