Israel, the son of Greta (nee Polak) and Kalman, was born on May 10, 1930 in Yugoslavia, in the city of Kokosza, in the Croatian region. He grew up in his hometown. In the 1930s there were about 75,000 Jews in Yugoslavia, concentrated in the large cities, and most of them lived in Croatia. Many of the Jews of Yugoslavia were engaged in trade and finance, and others engaged in industry, clericalism, free professions, and more. Welfare, educational, cultural, sports and youth institutions were established – all in Zionist affiliation. The Union of Jewish Communities was the umbrella organization of all the Jews of Yugoslavia and represented them to the authorities. Until the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, the Jews of Yugoslavia enjoyed relative security and a favorable attitude from the authorities. Since then, anti-Semitism has increased, reaching its peak with the outbreak of World War II, when the government enacted anti-Jewish laws. Between 1933 and 1941, approximately 50,000 Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis passed through Yugoslavia. The Jews of the state made a great organizational and financial effort on behalf of the refugees, and encouraged immigration to Palestine with a clear Zionist affiliation. Many refugees remained in the country and increased the number of Jews to 80,000 in 1941. With the occupation of Yugoslavia by the Nazis, on 6 April 1941, the state was divided between Germany and its allies – Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy. The Nazi occupiers established a puppet government in Croatia, which destroyed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs. By the end of the war about 65,000 Yugoslav Jews had been exterminated. Israel’s parents were murdered in Auschwitz. Only he, the only survivor of the family, was miraculously saved from the Bergen-Belsen death camp, where he worked as a locksmith. He later wrote to his aunt: “I can not write about the loss of my parents, and the thought of that alone hurts me very much. When the camp was liberated by the British in April 1945, Israel arrived in Sweden, which absorbed tens of thousands of survivors from the camps, sick and frozen. He recovered slowly. At first he worked as an assistant for a doctor, then a hospital, and finally worked as a locksmith. As part of the Youth Aliyah, Israel received a permit to immigrate to Eretz Israel. On May 29, 1946 he arrived in Haifa. On that day he wrote to his aunt: “My Odyssey is over, and I have finally reached a safe place after much wandering and agony.” From there he was brought to Kibbutz Degania Bet in the Jordan Valley, where he received his training as part of the youth group. He began to write passionate letters about life on the kibbutz, but the yearning for school grew. Israel was a smart and talented young man who yearned to work as a radio technician, but over time gave up and worked in the framework. He writes: “Life on the kibbutz is for the highest purpose, and it is building the country and the homeland, not only for us, but for all those who are still outside its borders. You will also be able to immigrate to Israel, and we, the two of us who have survived, will build a new nest for us that will be full of warmth and love when our home has always been. ” At the end of his training he moved with the rest of his friends in April 1948 to the Gevim group in the Negev. During his stay in the kibbutz he enlisted in the Palmach and served in the Second Battalion (“Northern Negev”) of the “Negev” Brigade – the 12th Brigade in the Hagana. . But we are ready for anything. We must cease wanderings and become a great and powerful nation. Do not worry about me and do not make me sad if you see the current situation, your immigration will be shortened, so I will be postponed for your arrival here, and I myself desire it very much, because I live in great loneliness. I long to pinI would like to talk to you about my parents and love you to replace your lost son. “In his last letter, dated 15 March 1948, he writes:” We are very busy. The situation is very serious. We are ready for anything. I knew that many would fall from our ranks, but without blood one could not acquire a homeland. Do not worry about me. I hope to see you soon. “Israel participated in many operations of his brigade, and aspired to serve in the air force that had just been established, but did not receive it.In July 1948, Many of the soldiers of the Egyptian invasion army barricaded themselves in the area, as part of the large fortification zone they established across the Negev, which connected their forces on the coastal plain with their forces in the Hebron Hills, which separated the Negev from the Lev of the young State of Israel and threatened the few Jewish settlements in the area. The villages are already at the end of the first truce in the war. “Death to Paul “Was one of the” Ten Days “operations initiated by Israel at the end of the first truce, the purpose of which was to remove the Arab invasion forces from the country, and in the operation that began on July 17, 1948, the” Negev “and” Givati ”brigades were joined together. Were the severing of the Majdal-Faluja road and the breakthrough to the Negev, as a result of the second truce, and Israel sought to block the Egyptian army, which threatened to advance northward, during the two days of the operation. Well-dug posts and even assisted by artillery. The attack on the Egyptian outpost in the Kokhaba failed, but Israel managed to seize an outpost in the region of Hulikat, an outpost that later helped to expel the Egyptians from the Negev. On the 18th of Tammuz 5708 (18.7.1948), in an attack on the strongholds of Kochba and Hulikat, Israel fell. Eighteen years old in his fall. Israel was buried in the place where the Egyptians fell. On December 6, 1948, his body was found during the battles for the opening of the road to the Negev, and he was laid to rest at Kibbutz Ruhama. On the 26th of Tammuz 5766 (26.6.1950) he was transferred to eternal rest in the military cemetery in Kfar Warburg. A few months later, Israel’s aunt arrived in Israel, and only then did her fate become known. This hero is a “last scion”. The survivors of the Holocaust are survivors of the Holocaust who survived the last remnant of their nuclear family (parents, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters) who experienced the Holocaust in the ghettos and / or concentration camps and / or in hiding and hiding in territories occupied by the Nazis and / Or in combat alongside members of the underground movements or partisans in the Nazi-occupied territories who immigrated to Israel during or after World War II, wore uniforms and fell in the Israeli army.
