Taos, Benjamin

Son of Esther and Anshel, was born on the 27th of Cheshvan 5639 (October 23, 1918) in the city of Chzanov in western Galicia (Poland) to a Hasidic family, far from Zionism. As a result of a serious illness, when he was a one-year-old infant, his body was defective, and so he moved away from his friends’ games, so that they would not make fun of him and devoted himself more diligently to his studies. He studied in a “cheder” and in a Polish school. He completed a trade school and helped his father run a shop and a men’s clothing workshop. As a young boy, he was drawn to Zionism and joined the Hashomer Hadati movement of HaPoel Hamizrachi, but he left it to his father. Over time, he dared to devote himself openly to the activities of the branch. At the beginning of World War II, the boy Benjamin fled with his brother to Russia, and when he returned after liberation he learned that his parents and older brother had been exterminated in Auschwitz and the other brothers and sisters were scattered in labor camps. He immediately joined the “Torah V’Avodah” training commune in the city of Krakow and worked to establish additional branches and training groups for his movement in the city and throughout the region. He took part in the defense of the kibbutz building against Polish rioters and took every job neglected by the other members. He went with his friends to Germany and participated in the founding of Kibbutz “Negev” in the Pocking camp. From there he moved to France, boarded the Latrun and was deported with her passengers to Cyprus. Where he met with his two surviving sisters and found contact with his brother. In May 1947 he was permitted to immigrate. After his release from the Atlit and Kiryat Shmuel camps, he joined Kfar Etzion and soon became involved in social life and work, and was involved in land training, clearing and building. In the spring of 1948 his sisters arrived in Israel, but he could not meet with them, because Kfar Etzion was already besieged, and despite his physical weakness he practiced, worked in fortifications and guarded positions and was joined by a mortar crew. , On Wednesday, May 13, 1948. On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949) he was transferred to the eternal military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.