Zandman, Meir

Meir, son of Mindel and Dov Zandman, was born on May 29, 1927 in the Free City of Danzig. He was eight years old when he was orphaned from his mother. Meir grew up in an atmosphere of rising Nazism. As a child, he was beaten in the street with the rifle butt of a Nazi officer when he refused to salute the Nazi procession and call “Heil Hitler”. When he was 12 years old, he immigrated to Israel with his father and two brothers and after four months of wandering on the sea, and three deportations from the shores of the country, they arrived in Israel. Meir was placed in the children’s institution “Ahava” in Kiryat Bialik. Soon he had acquired the Hebrew language. His two older brothers volunteered to fight the Nazis and fell into captivity. Meir managed to obtain a permit that was he was already 18 years old, and was accepted into the army when he was only 15 and a half years old. He served as a gunner in Haifa’s anti-aircraft defense. After two years, his father managed to persuade the military authorities that he was not yet 18 years old. He was released and moved to serve as a patrol in Sodom and later in the Tel Aviv police. He was among the first to join the ranks of the Haganah and did everything that was imposed on him, and the day before the first year of his marriage, he did not tell his wife that he was embarking on a dangerous mission. On 13 Adar 2 (March 24, 1948), accompanied by his companions, Meir accompanied a convoy to Atarot, near Shuafat which was attacked by an Arab mob and all its members were injured. Meir was buried in the Sanhedria cemetery and was transferred to eternal rest in the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on 15.11.1951.