Unsdorfer, Tuvia

Son of Rivka and Hillel, was born in February 1925 in Czechoslovakia. As a member of a rabbinical family he received a traditional education at home. He attended elementary and high school. In 1942, as persecution against the Jews of Slovakia increased, he actively participated in organizing the Jewish escape across the border. In 1944 he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp in Hungary, but fled to Budapest and lived there for a while under the auspices of the Swiss consulate. When it became known to the Gestapo, Tuvia was sent to the death camp at Bergen-Belsen, where he managed to survive, and saved the lives of others. After the incinerators blew up the Allied planes, he was sent away with the rest of the prisoners, and the guards were supposed to drown them in the Elba River. The rapid progress of the Allies saved him. Tuvia immigrated to Israel in July 1945 together with a boy who had been saved from the camp. He worked as a guide in Hadera and was very active in the ranks of the Haganah from its first day in Israel. As soon as the war broke out, he joined the Palmach’s “Haemek” battalion in the Jezreel Valley and the Upper Galilee, and during the first truce the brigade participated in Operation “Danny” and on the night of 17 On July 18, 1948, before the start of the second truce, the “Haemek” battalion seized Shilat and an outpost in the eastern part of the Korikor ridge in order to threaten the wing of the legion in Latrun. The force in the outpost from two directions with the help of armored vehicles, and that was forced to retreat Of the fighters, including Tuvia, on the 18th of Tammuz 5708 (18.7.1948) On Sunday, February 28, 1950, he was transferred to eternal rest in a grave in the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.