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CHAYIM ROZENBLIT: PARTISAN
AND SOLDIER IN THE WAR OF
LIBERATION
By Nathan Tchelet (Blumen)
Chayim Rozenblit fell during the Israeli War of
Liberation in the Tzemach region of the Emek-
Hayarden, on the 9th of Iyar, 1948. He was buried
in the military cemetery at Degania, on the shores
of Lake Kinneret, and his tomb was engraved with
his name and serial number as a member of the
Israel Defense Forces#173320.
Chayim, the son of Avrom and Pesye, was
born in 1918 in the village of Masheve, near
Luboml. His father was a pious and a God-fearing
Jew, who brought up his son Chayim in the
ways of the Holy Torah. At first, Chayim studied
in a public school and later continued to
study on his own. In 1935, he joined the
Chayim Rozenblit (z"1) in Kibbutz Kinneret.
347
hachshara kibbutz (Hechalutz
training farm) to prepare
himself to emigrate to
Palestine as a pioneer. But
fate was cruel to him and it
was doubtful whether he
would ever make aliyah, for World War II intervened
in 1939. He saw with his own eyes the
horrible terror the Germans perpetrated against
the Jews of Luboml. His personal diary of the era
is an authentic witness to Jewish life in Luboml
and in the villages in the days of the Nazi occupation
and of the liquidation of the Jews in the
pits of the brick factory.
Chayim got weapons from a Polish acquaintance
and fled Luboml into a forest. But he returned.
The Jews had been concentrated in a
ghetto there, and Chayim wanted to rescue his
family. His mother was able to escape from the
ghetto, and for a long time they went together
from town to town in the surrounding areas,
until his mother was murdered.
Chayim joined the partisans, helping them
wreak vengeance. And at last he joined the Red
Army and fought until victory came. After the war
he went to Germany, where he joined the partisan
kvutza, Negev. After various hardships and
wanderings, he finally came to Palestine in 1946,
on the ship Tel Chai Together with his friends
from his kvutsa, he became a member of Kvutzat
Kinneret, where he lived until he fell in the War
of Liberation.