Spiegel, Nehemiah (Philip)
Son of Louisa and Menahem, was born in 1922 in Satmar, Hungary, to a devout family. He studied in yeshivot and high school. During the Nazi occupation his parents were exterminated by the Nazis in the Auschwitz camp, while he survived and in 1944 he set sail on the Turkish ship Bulbul. On another ship, his sister sailed, but she did not get to arrive, because the ship sank at sea and Nehemiah remained with his sister’s little girl and brought her to Israel. Upon his arrival he enlisted in the Jewish Brigade to fight the Nazis and served there until the end of the war. During the short period of peace between the end of the Second World War and the War of Independence, he worked as a telephone technician. Upon his first call to the service, he joined the defenders of the homeland and served in the Givati Brigade. In January 1948, Sharon underwent a course for heavy machine gun operators, and afterwards he set out to guard the security road to the south and participated in reconnaissance and bombing operations to ease the position of Beit Dagon, On Passover that year he participated as a machine gunner in Operation Chametz to encircle Arab Jaffa. In early May 1948, he was transferred to the Latrun area to participate in the breakthrough to Jerusalem in Operation Maccabi. Before his departure, a quarrel arose between him and his friend, and both were ordered to remain in the camp, but Nehemiah did not accept the punishment and demanded that he be brought to battle. His commanding officer in the operation relates that Nehemiah was in a armored vehicle driving in the head, and when they encountered enemy armored vehicles, a fierce battle broke out. He used his weapon incessantly, with incredible coolness, until the enemy, who was armed with cannons, hit the armored vehicle and Nehemiah fell with his friends on the 3rd of Iyar 5708 (May 12, 1948). 1950) was brought to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
