אוסף משפחת שטרמן-שטרן

Avraham Shterman was born on June 8, 1913, in the town of Antopal, Poland (today Belarus) to Moshe and Chaya Malca. His father, Moshe Shterman, was the son of Sheina Leah and Yaacov Leib Shterman. His mother, Malca, was the daughter of Pasha Name (Pnina Naomi) and Yisrael Zekosky from the provincial town Kobrin. At home they spoke Yiddish. The Shterman family made their living from agriculture, as did most of the Jewish families in the town. They grew and sold cucumbers for pickling and geese. The Jews of Antopal preserved the Jewish tradition in a moderate way. It is told that on Sukkot, an ethrog was bought in partnership with another village. Every day they drove 30 kilometers, in a horse-drawn carriage, so the Jews in the other village could make the blessing on the ethrog. The father of the family, Moshe Shterman, did not strictly observe the laws of Judaism but his wife led a religious life. Avraham was the eldest of 6 children. Two of his brothers, twins, died at a young age. Avraham and his three younger sisters survived- Penina (1915), Sarah (1926) and Rachel (1931). Penina married Michael Gustman (1907). They had a daughter named Tzila (Tzeetaleh) who was born in 1938 in Zabinka. A modern school, from the Hebrew-Zionist Educational Movement opened in Antopal. General subjects, as well as Hebrew and Jewish studies, were taught there. At the age of 13 Avraham left Antopal and went to study at the Epstein Jewish High School in Vilna, the capital of Lithuania. He completed his high school studies in a public school, not in a Jewish one. While in school he worked marketing geese shipments from Antopal to Vilna. Because of the quota that limited the number of Jews allowed to study in Polish universities, Avraham registered to study medicine at the Montpellier University in France. He lived there for three years, however he suffered from many difficulties and poverty because he could not get a license to work in France. When he received permission to come to Israel ('certificate') he immediately stopped his studies and came via Italy. It is likely that the end of his exemption from military service given to him in Poland caused him to move away from Europe. His father objected to his moving to Israel because of the tension between Jews and Arabs in the country, and felt that the situation in Poland was safer. It was only at the beginning of the period of World War II and the increased persecution of the Jews, that the father understood how lucky Avraham was. The family's objection to his coming to Israel was influenced also by his aunt, Rivka Vindman, who lived in Tel Aviv. She was concerned that Avraham would not find suitable employment and would be forced to work as a porter. He had two more aunts, his mother's sisters, living in Israel, Shoshana Zakuska and Chinya Tcherny. Another sister and brother of his mother lived in the United States, Hannah Vison and David Zakvin. After his arrival in Israel, Avraham worked at the potash plant at the Dead Sea, and in 1938 worked at Solel Boneh building the fence on the Northern border. He later moved to Jerusalem and worked at an institution for mentally ill people. There he met Shlomit Zimmerman who he later married. In March 1939 Avraham traveled to Antopal for a family visit which lasted three months. That was the last time he saw he family who were murdered in the Holocaust. As many others of his generation, he did not talk much about is life before coming to Israel or about his family that he left behind. On his way back to Israel Avraham made a fictitious marriage to Aliza Einstein, which enabled her to come to Israel (she later lived in Bat Shlomo). Several months after his return to Israel on November 7, 1939, Avraham married Shlomit (Shprinza) Zimmerman who grew up in a neighboring village in Vilna. They had three children: Ruth (Stern), whose initiative it was to scan this collection of photos, Nira and Moshe. Avraham worked as a nurse in the Hadassah Hospital and in Kupat Holim for 25 years. He also served as a nurse in the army in his miluim service. In this capacity he cared for President Shazar and Ben-Zvi as well as for Miriam Yellin-Shteklis and other well known people from that period. At the same time he ran a convalescent home for people after operations on Ibn Ezra Street in Jerusalem. Avraham was fluent in many languages, he loved to read, was interested in politics and was a very hard working man. When he retired from Hadassah, he studied accounting and worked in the field until his death from a heart attack, at the age of 59, in the summer of 1972. Building the Northern Fence The photographs in this collection are from when Avraham worked in the North with Solel Boneh, who in 1938 built the northern border fence between the area of the British Mandate in Israel and the area of the French Mandate in Syria-Lebanon. The initiative for building the fence was of Charles Tagart- an expert in combating terrorism and suppressing revolts, who came especially for this purpose from India. Its role was to prevent the passage of personnel and weapons to fortify the Arab forces that revolted against the British reign and attacked the Jews during the years 1936-1939 (the Arab Revolt). Solel Boneh was given the franchise to build the fence from the British. They wanted to complete the work in three months and therefore hired about 1,000 workers. About 300 of them were security guards who protected the workers camp and the building site. Yehoshua Isaac Eshel (who later became the Commander of Air Service in the Hagganah and one of the founders of the Air Force) and Shlomo Shamir (later a Major General in the IDF) oversaw the security arrangements. The route of the fence started from the Yarmuk to the Kinneret and from there to the Hula Lake and then turned westward from the area of Jachula village, following the Northern road and ending at Ras-El-Nakura (Rosh Hanikra). The tent camp that housed the workers moved from place to place in accordance with the progress of the work. At first it was near Kibbutz Sha'ar Hagolan, from there it moved to Migdal, Ayelet Hashachar, Malciya, Sasa and Betzet. The fence, which was 4 meters wide, was built from 4 rows of metal bars with barbed wire between them. The Arabs living in the vicinity tried to prevent the building of the fence. They destroyed parts of it and even killed two of the workers. Despite this sabotage and harassment, the building of the fence was finished on schedule and in July 1938 they celebrated completion of the fence in the Betzet camp. Later the British added five (Tegart) fortresses to the fortifications of the fence and twenty pillboxes (concrete posts) manned by guards. The entire system was completed at the beginning of 1939. In the mid-1940s the fence was dismantled by the British, and today there is no trace of it. The building of the northern border fence works was one of the largest projects undertaken by the Jewish settlement until then. Therefore, it was perceived as a national project that provided experience for the future in operating expensive infra-structure projects which were labor intensive and that combined organizational, employment and security efforts. Teggart himself wrote to David Hacohen: "There is no need to worry about the future of the Land of Israel as long as there are people who can take upon themselves and carry out such tasks according to the plan and the time set for this in advance." اقرأ أكثر