Wasserman, Amnon (Alterk)
Son of Pesia-Dvora and Fishel. He was born in 1923 in Warsaw, Poland, where he completed his studies in elementary school, and was a prolific and energetic young man with a high level of knowledge of languages and school, especially in literature and history. During his free time, he read books and even wrote stories, essays, and poems, and was active in sports and participated in competitions as a gymnast, ice skater, and was an excellent swimmer. After the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, he was smuggled to Bialystok in the area of the Black Sea where he recovered from typhoid fever and escaped to Sweden, where he immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1940. He was accepted to the Ben Shemen agricultural school, but after a while he stopped his studies. In late April 1943, a convoy of Allied ships left Egypt via Malta to Sicily to participate in the invasion of Europe, and the soldiers of Amnon’s unit were aboard the ship “Aryanpura.” On the afternoon of May 1, 1943 (27 Nisan), a German reconnaissance plane bombed the convoy. The “Aryanpura” suffered direct hits and drowned immediately. One hundred and forty of the soldiers of the unit drowned with her, and Amnon among them. He left parents and brother. In the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a monument was erected in memory of those who perished in this disaster. This fallen hero is a “maklan” – a hero whose burial place is unknown.
