Sternheim, Michael
Son of Deborah and Joshua. He was born in the town of Lanzot in Galicia on February 25, 1905. His parents were well-to-do Jewish community members, and in 1914 the father died. The mother and her four brothers worked to raise the children and educate them according to family tradition. In 1922 he immigrated to Eretz Israel and as with the majority of pioneers from that time he traveled extensively throughout the country, doing various jobs, such as building and paving roads. In 1926 he joined the police and served for a few years as a single Jewish policeman in an Arab town in Beit Shean. Later in his career he served in the “Transjordan” school, which was mostly Arab, and even though the Arab soldiers harassed him he faced them with dignity and courage. He later moved to Kfar Malal and became a guard in the moshav and its vicinity, where he also married a wife, and during the 1936-1939 events he enlisted in the Notre Dame Railway. He served in various positions established to protect the tracks, and in December 1942, during the Second World War, he enlisted in the British Army and was posted to the transport corps and served in the 462 company that was then deployed in Egypt. He was among the soldiers that drowned on the ship “Aryanpura” on 27 Nisan, 1.5.1943, when German planes bombed their convoy. On Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, there is a ship-shaped monument with the names of the fallen engraved on the bottom of a pool of water.
