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by Sándor Jakubovits–Ják
Translated by Dorothy Gross Nadosy
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Into a scrap hill hunched gray lumpy ash; millions and millions of martyrs.
The hill is ever
The hill is ever
The hill is ever |
In Memory of the Jewish Martyrs
of Beregszász and its Surroundings
Translated by Dorothy Gross Nadosy
Remember them! Let's go back in our thoughts to the past. Let us recall the personalities, pillars, and members of the Beregszász community. Our brothers, thousands of our families, who, like a flock to the slaughterhouse, were carried away from the Beregszász ghetto to cruel destruction!
Let us remember today the spineless city that we once considered our birthplace. Remember the many villages of the wider area, where our families felt at ease and safe for long generations. But in the time of great tribulation, in the uplifting spiritual and bodily affliction – they were betrayed by the people they lived among; the false, two–faced neighbors left them; the so–called “friends” became traitors, reprobate killer minions; classmates and teachers disappeared from the horizon, and our dear family members left their hands, looted, sacked, bitterly frustrated, disgraced, disappointed, humiliated, and deported to horrible deaths!
Half a century ago, the Jewish people reached the most insidious and cruel chapter of their tragedies. Human animals in a sick fantasy chased our parents, siblings, husbands, wives, little children and grandchildren to their destruction. Not with a gun, not a sword, but with fire and blood, gas and water, in the midst of dire torture, they stole their tidy lives! A single and cruel fate reached all of them that we can never forget and cannot forgive.
We remember them day by day, every hour, and every minute: pious, good–natured, diligent, and clean–minded fellow men who loved their family and their country, but their cremation ashes were not given eternal rest! In enemy territories, bones and ashes of our loved ones were scattered on damned lands. But in our hearts, they have remained in all their sublime beauty, and today they are all here among us, won with their blood in our old/new homeland! Here we feel them, the twentieth–century victims, the most innocent martyrs of two–faced, indifferent, “civilized, “ and inhuman mankind.
That is how we remember thousands of Jews in Berehovo–Beregszász and its surroundings who were afflicted by the most unjust fate. We inherit their memory, crystallized in glory, in our revived old homeland. With deep mourning, helpless vengeance, and painful anguish, we turn our orphan minds to never–dying love for their blessed memory, with all our thoughts, eternal grace now – and for all time!
Born in Netanya on October 29, 1949, His parents: Sara and Yosef. His courage and his tendency to selfishness were inherited from his parents, who were members of the fighting underground movement. His father, Joseph Roth (Kotyó), plays an active role in Beregszász circles.
Nachum was a burly, tall, handsome man full of zest and joy, a man, as they say, whose smile does not leave his lips, and it was easy to love him. He also completed his school studies at Netanya (graduated from the ORT vocational school). Due to the state of health – which was not visible externally – he could have been exempted from serving at the front. But he insisted on serving in a combat unit and getting to the armored squad, where he served as a tank commander.
His friends say that Nachum volunteered for every task and as naturally as if it were his everyday job. In the Yom–Kippur war, when beside the Suez Canal, the fiercest fighting was conducted around the “Television” fortification, the tanks of his unit were severely damaged. He himself led the captain's tank and fell there in October 1973, before his 24th birthday.
He left a widow and a two–month–old baby (Michael) as well as his eternally–mourning parents and sister.
With our pious heads, let us promote the fallen hero of the first new generation of Beregszász descendants, whose short life was rich in love for his family, his people, his homeland. His earthly remains rest in the Netanya military cemetery.
Born on May 18, 1928 near Beregszász in the village of Nagymuzsaly, famous for its wines, he was called Jaki, as he was known in the Dror youth organization that he joined in his youth. His happy youth drowned in the 1944 sea of hatred. He was only 16 at the beginning of the Holocaust, full of Jewish pride and confidence. This helped in surviving the cruel days.
After liberation, he dedicated himself to the education of the younger ones. He entered a refugee children's home as a trainer and arrived in Italy with them, where he prepared the children to live in Eretz. He himself received a training course in the Haganah.
The fate that had so far behaved favorably against him and helped him to return to his ancient homeland did not allow his future to get started. Tragedy struck Jaki, one of the greatest of our young heroes, on the dawn of our independence. Immediately after arriving and entering the country nine days before, he participated in bloody fighting in Latrun and fell there on May 24, 1948, six days after his 20th birthday.
He was laid to eternal rest in the Eternal City on Mount Herzl among the other heroes of Israel who secured our lives with their death. In memory of glory!
“Ernö” was born 1923 in Beregszász, into the well–known, large Szántó family. After a happy and active childhood, he had his share of suffering and shock.
Tzvi was drafted to the Hungarian labor services but was “freed” from there. From one bad situation to another! He was sent to a German concentration camp, to Austria and from there fled in a miraculous way.
After his release, he didn't want to return to his “home town” anymore. He joined groups of refugees where they trained themselves for Youth Aliyah and the Israeli War of Independence. In France, he taught younger children and then arrived here with an “illegal aliyah” before the founding of the state.
He settled down in Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh. He lived there, fought there, and was seriously injured there in 1948. He never healed from this wound. For years he suffered, hospital to a hospital, surgery to surgery, until the infirmity finally defeated him, and he died in 1956.
He was buried like a hero killed in the War of Independence. Blessed be his memory!
Son of the great and well–known Kahan family, he was born on November 25, 1921 in Berehovo.
Yakov also arrived in the country on an illegal ship, full of idealism and ready for action. In Karkur, then in the Galilee, he joined a kibbutz and finally settled in Kibbutz Lahavot Habashan, where he started a family. According to his friends' testimony, he was characterized by a zest for life and a love for work.
At the time of the Arab invasion, which had Lahavot Habashan under siege, telephone connections stopped between posts. Yakov volunteered for the dangerous task of checking all the foxholes and reporting on the situation. When he reached the foxhole shed and wanted to put the telephone handset into operation, the killer bullet reached him, and he bled to death. His friends brought him into the foxhole and asked for help, but the beautiful, lively man was no longer alive.
His friend Saul says, “Our heartbeat stopped for a second. Then, with lips clenched, we stretched our hands out to our weapons and pushed ourselves. Nobody talked. The new day arrived. The enemy hurled its attacks. And we swore on Jacob's memory: we sacrifice our lives, but this land, which was sanctified by our friend's blood, we are never giving up!”
On Adar 26 (April 6, 1948), Yakov fell in the first dawn of our independence, defending Lahavot Habashan. The country and people of Israel can be happy that they have such heroes.
Born in Beregszász on September 17, 1916, in one of the oldest religious–Zionist families in our city, son of Chaim–Yitzchak and Sara Altmann.
Among us, his name was Janko. He was raised in the B'nei Akiba youth movement for Youth Aliyah. And as a good Zionist who not only “preaches”, but also realizes his teaching, he set off to the Eretz. He came home to Israel from Nazi–occupied Prague through Yugoslavia in 1939 in an “illegal” immigration.
He joined the Kvutzat Avraham Hachshara next to Kfar Pines. His talent came to light, and he occupied central positions as a manager and an internal secretary and was sent to a Hagana company–commander course.
Through Kvutzat Avraham, he arrived at Kfar Etzion, where he was assigned more serious duties: sergeant of the area's auxiliary police and later district commander in Gush Etzion. Janko was the first commander of the platoon and the last to fall on the day before the proclamation of the State (Iyar 4), May 13, 1948. The Arabs killed him in the headquarters bunker. He received his military rank after the War of Liberation.
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