Simon, Ephraim

Julius and Carolyn. He was born on February 24, 1931 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His father was a doctor of law and an ardent Zionist. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, the family had to flee Germany, moved to France and settled in Strasbourg. Shortly before the liberation of France, the father was killed by the Germans and the family continued to flee to southern France. Efraim studied elementary school in France. When he was just ten, he joined his family in the underground movement MAQUIS. After World War II, Ephraim boarded one of the ships of Aliyah Bet of Marseilles. In Israel he was arrested with the rest of the immigrants and brought to the Atlit camp. He was liberated from the camp by the Hagana, joined the youth group at Kibbutz Dafna and from there, despite his youth, enlisted in the Palmach, where he fought in the Upper Galilee, Safed and the Negev. At the beginning of February 1948, he was drafted into the IDF, and his mother wrote a letter to Israel asking if at that young age a young man had to serve in the army, and Ephraim was transferred to the Technical School of the Air Force. In the Israeli Air Force, from the rank of “Private” to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, where he completed high grades and completed his officers’ course as an outstanding trainee Ephraim served in the Corps in many important positions: The Air, an aircraft maintenance officer, is a member of the procurement delegation of the French Ministry of Defense, who has fulfilled all his duties with extraordinary dedication. He was always very knowledgeable, but he was well informed that he was able to broaden his horizons and deepen his knowledge by reading and interested in many fields, and he was able to adapt easily to difficult situations and find a solution to new problems. Ephraim was a member of the first Israeli Air Force delegation to France, a period in which the Israeli Air Force replaced old-fashioned equipment with modern equipment, and Ephraim had a hand in all the operations and trials that were carried out at the time. Thanks to his excellent qualities and knowledge of the French language, he was a natural candidate for the purchasing delegation in France. As a member of the delegation played an important role and thanks to his talent, dedication, initiative and sense of responsibility many important things were done. He knew his wife when they both served in the air force. Over the years they had a son and daughter. On the 6th of Tevet 5731 (3.1.1971), he fell while carrying out his duties in Switzerland and his wife and two children were killed and brought to rest in the Tivon cemetery.