Brothers For Resistance And Rescue By David Gur

Offner Róbert 'Fifi'Born in Kassa (Košice) in 1925Member of "Beitar"Died in July 2006, IsraelRobert joined the movement at the age of thirteen. After the Germanoccupation of Hungary on 19.3.1944, he was moved to a ghetto, togetherwith other Jews of his town and its vicinity. Thanks to forged documentsforwarded to him and his friend Shabtai Német, they escaped and arrivedin Budapest.He produced and distributed forged documents and traveled to the ghettoin Sopron. In Budapest, he hid in a bunker located at the Institute ofTechnology in Budapest. In August he was caught and tortured by theHungarian police who wanted to get the names of his comrades. Hesurvived the torture and did not reveal anything. Robert was transferredto the Kistarcsa detention camp, from which he later escaped. Hereturned to the underground in Budapest, and stayed at a bunker onHungary Boulevard.Together with Tommy Freiman, another member of the movement, hereported at the fascist "Arrow Cross" headquarters, and joined its ranks.He obtained authentic documents, which were instrumental in rescuingJews from Protected Houses. He also took part in setting up the bunkerat Laci-köz.On 7.12.1944 he was captured again and detained at the main militaryprison on Margit Boulevard in Budapest. From there he was transferredto a jail in Sopronkøhida. By the end of January 1945 Róbert was sent toSzombathely and assigned to disassembling bomb duds. From there hefled to Yugoslavia. In 1948 he was recruited to the Czechoslovak armyand began his technical academic studies in Prague.In April 1949 Róbert made aliya. Between 1951 and 1961 he served inthe engineering corps of the IDF, and was demobilized with the rank ofmajor. He worked abroad as an agent for Solel Boneh from 1962 to 1970and for ORS International from 1971 to 1990.He lives in Haifa with his wife, Tzipora, nee BiebersteinOffner Róbert has written the book: Véletlenül életben maradtam (ISurvived by Chance ) Budapest 1944. ( Hungarian ) Published by theauthor in 1996 in Israel. The Hebrew translation of the book -Offner Róbert: Bemikre Nisharti Behayim ( I survived by Chance )Budapest 1944. - published by the author in 1997 in Israel..Brothers for Resistance and Rescue 183