Stern, Franz

Son of Hugo. Born in Bialfeld, Germany, on October 20, 1906. His father was a well-to-do business man who owned a textile factory, Franz studied law and intended to become a lawyer, and after the Nazi rise to power, he left Germany and immigrated to Palestine in December 1934. He settled in Tel Aviv and purchased an orchard adjacent to Kibbutz Givat Brenner, where his relatives lived, and this orchard was a place of work for members of the kibbutz. Due to financial difficulties he was forced to sell the plant and the orchard and began to work as a salaried worker in a Rishon Letzion winery. He served with the first volunteers in the British army and as a soldier in a transport company, served first in Tsrifin and Mount Canaan and was then transferred to Greece where he was captured by the enemy and transferred to a two-week enclave in Kalamata. A German soldier shot at a gathering of POWs beside a water tanker. Franz was killed on 4 Iyar (1.5.1941). He was 34 when he fell. He was buried three days later in a place unknown to this day. He left a wife, two sons and a brother. His name is inscribed in a monument to the anonymous soldier stationed at the British military cemetery in Piraeus, Greece, with two thousand and two additional names of soldiers whose burial places are unknown.