Smitherd, Max (“Micki”)
Son of Lina and Isidor was born on April 12, 1914 in a small village near the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. His parents engaged in petty commerce and in his youth he was known in the trading house they owned. He attended elementary school, high school, and later at the teachers’ seminary. In 1932 he joined the Hechalutz movement and a year later, when the Nazis took power in Germany, he decided to prepare himself for immigration to Israel. For two years he worked in Bohemia and later went to a training camp in Sze, Slovakia. At the end of his training he immigrated to Israel together with his group members who first arrived in Herzliya and from there to Shfayim. The friends at Shfayim remember Micki – his nickname by his friends and someone who “always has a friendly smile hovering on his face … a modest and quiet man with an inner life full of life and energy … he was interested in everything about building the point, He lovingly accepted everything … “. On the 18 th of September 1938, he went out in the truck of Shefayim’s Notrim for a tour near the farm. When the truck arrived at a point between the farm and the Litwinsky garden, it hit a mine, turned over, and caught fire. Four guards who were sitting there were killed, and customs were among them. The four were brought to eternal rest in a mass grave near the eucalyptus grove in the seabed. Speeches in memory of Max were written in Davar.
