Zegelstein, Yehuda

Son of Rivka and Efraim-Fishel, was born on the 22nd of Tishrei 5623 (22.10.1922) in the village of Maidan, in the Carpatho-Ross region. He studied in the “cheder” and in a Czech school and his family was absorbed by the spirit of Hassidism and Ahavat Zion. As a child he had been orphaned from his mother and moved with his family to the city of Khust. When he finished school in the city, he went to work to help the family. During the Second World War he arrived in Budapest and was recruited there to a Hungarian labor camp. He worked in the Supply Department and took advantage of his work to help the partisans who fought the Germans. After the deportation of the Hungarian Jews he tried to join the partisans, but he was caught in a battle between them and the Nazis, and after retreating he fell into the hands of the Nazis together with his friend. Claiming that they were “Aryan” saved from death. At the end of the war he moved to Budapest and often risked his life by providing relief to Jews who had returned from the camps, among them his brothers and sisters. Together with his brother, he later moved to Czechoslovakia, and from there to Germany, to Kibbutz Bnei Akiva in Landsberg and Italy, to Kibbutz Ayala in Vilamadonna, on the shore from which illegal immigrant ships set sail. In the summer of 1946, he boarded the “Yordei Ha-Sira” boat, which was intercepted and sent to Cyprus by the British, and was among the stubborn opponents of the ship, and was a prominent member of the Haganah. “When he arrived in Israel, he immediately joined Kfar Etzion, adapted easily to social life, and became involved in construction. At the outbreak of the campaign, he took part in patrols in the area and went out with a security group to guard the saboteurs who had made the environment difficult. One of the patrols was also lightly hit by a mine. On the last day of the campaign for Kfar Etzion, on the last day of the battle for Kfar Etzion, he took part in a position in the southeast of the farm and participated until his death in repelling the attacking enemy. 17.11.1949) was brought to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.