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Teichman, Yaakov (Yankele)

Teichman, Yaakov (Yankele)


Jacob, the son of Sprinza (Shulamit) and Moshe, was born in the city of Radom in 1926. He grew up in a traditional home on the eve of World War II, Poland was the focal point of world Jewry in religious, national, political, social and cultural activities. The economic crisis that gripped the world at the end of the 1930s influenced the agriculture of Poland and exacerbated the anti-Semitic sentiments and pushed the feet of the Jews, who were considered to have a key position in economic life, suffering from an anti-Jewish economic boycott and growing pogroms. September 1, 1939, World War II broke out with Germany’s invasion of Poland and occupation The Jews were forced to live in ghettos and from there were sent to labor camps or to extermination camps, and by the end of the war about three million Jews had perished Poland At the outbreak of the war, the Teichman family fled from Radom to Warsaw, where they were caught by the Germans, Jacob’s father perished in Auschwitz, and his mother was shot to death when she failed to march toward the trains that led Jews to the death camps . His sister committed suicide by jumping from a tall building while the Nazis came to take her to a whorehouse to serve the German soldiers. Yakov, 13, was also taken to Auschwitz. One day he was caught trying to steal a potato, and on the spot the German soldier cut a finger in his right hand. One day, when he lost consciousness, Jacob was thrown into the pit. When he regained consciousness, he escaped from the pit and fled the camp. On his way he heard the cry of a baby. He picked it up and discovered that it was a baby about two years old. Jacob carried on his hands until he reached the outskirts of the village, where he placed her in the doorway of one of the houses in the hope that she would survive. In the forest to which he had fled, Yaakov joined a partisan group and worked with them until the end of the war. Many young men like him who were imprisoned in the ghettos fled to the forests, joined the local partisans, or formed groups entirely of Jews, from which they fought the Germans as best they could. Toward the end of the war, the Germans besieged the partisans. Jacob and a few other friends found refuge in a sewer pit, with the smell of stench protecting them and disrupting the sense of smell of the chasing dogs. When they were quiet, they left the pit and hid in an abandoned warehouse. For four days without water or food, they passed, crammed under a pile of sacks and mattresses, until the Americans arrived. After the liberation Yaakov joined the “Bericha” movement – the mass immigration movement after World War II and the name of the organization that guided the flow of those leaving. In the framework of the Bericha, some 250,000 Holocaust survivors, mostly from Eastern Europe, left their homes and moved to the DP camps in the West (Germany, Austria and Italy). From there they sought to reach ports of departure from which they could sail to Palestine. In a refugee camp in Italy, he began to realize his literary talent. First he learned Hebrew, then began to “swallow” Hebrew books and continued writing short poems. When it came time to immigrate to Israel, Jacob boarded the ship “Katriel Yaffe”, organized by the Mossad for Aliyah Bet of the Haganah. The ship departed from the port of Boca di Magra in Italy on July 31, 1946, carrying 604 illegal immigrants on board. Two weeks later, while at sea, the ship was seized by British naval vessels and towed to Haifa Bay, where it was placed under arrest. At night the ship commander managed to take control of the British guards, disengaged the anchor chain, and the ship drifted toward the Kiryat Haim beach. But a British tugboat ran after her and caught her. After a violent struggle, during which the immigrants discoveredStrong resistance, the British took control of the ship. The “Katriel Yaffe” immigrants were transferred to the deportation ship and were among the first to be deported to a detention camp in Cyprus. Yaakov returned to the shores of the country after a year in the camp, within the framework of Youth Aliyah, and joined his family who lived in Tel Aviv. For several weeks he was locked up in the house, sitting with his cousin and recounting in detail what he had experienced during the Holocaust. Spoke fluently, as though he wanted to unburden himself. Afterward, he began studying at ORT in Tel Aviv, and for a while worked as a courier for the Isha newspaper. The battles of the War of Independence had already taken place in Israel, and Yaakov wanted to join the fighters and contribute his part. His relatives urged him to rest his life before he enlisted, but his answer was firm: “I had a great right to survive the Holocaust … and if my fate is to fall in battle I should fall as a human being and be buried as a human being … I want weapons in my hand. To avenge the blood of my family, if not to fight the Germans, then at least in the evenings. ” At the end of 1947 he joined the Haganah and served in the “Kiryati” brigade. Despite the shock in which Jacob insisted on becoming a fighter, he practiced a lot until he managed to pull the trigger with his left hand. The brigade’s fighters, founded at the beginning of the War of Independence, defended the settlements of the Dan region and fought in Haganah positions in Tel Aviv, on the Jaffa front. Jacob took part in many daring activities. In April 1948, Yaakov participated in a battle in Tel Arish. The village of Tel Arish was located on a hill south of Holon (today it is a public park in the Tel Giborim neighborhood of Holon). The residents of the village and Arab fighters who joined them frequently attacked and set fire to nearby Holon. The Hagana fighters attacked the village several times during the winter of 1948, but the village remained under Arab control.In April 1948, as part of Operation Chametz, in which many Arab villages were conquered around Arab Jaffa, it was decided to take control of Tel Arish, The attack was carried out on the night of 29.4.1948, and was first taken over by the fighters of the Givati ​​Brigade, joined by fighters from the “Kiryati” brigade. Part of the village, but the Arabs called for reinforcements from all over the area, a fierce battle ensued, and the Israeli fighters were forced to retreat, and Yaakov was one of the casualties in this battle. The “Netzer Acharon” is the last surviving survivor of the Holocaust, the last remnant of their nuclear family (parents, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters) who experienced the Holocaust in the ghettos and / or concentration and extermination camps. / Or on the run and hiding in territories occupied by the Nazis and / or fighting alongside members of the underground movements or partisans in the Nazi-occupied territories who immigrated to Israel during or after World War II, wore uniforms and fell in the Israeli army.

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