PALMACH YIFTACH
Gerhard Weil, the son of Otto and Hilda Weil, was born
on November 23 1922 in Lausanne, Switzerland, to a family with a tradition of army service, and was educated as a Swiss citizen to love freedom. As a student of the “Reali” school, he was active in the Scouts movement. He continued his studies at the Polytechnic school in Zurich, and graduated as an engineer.
Shortly after beginning his compulsory military army service in the Swiss Army, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the Engineering Corps, specializing in mines and demolition.
Out of humanitarian feelings and hatred of the Nazis during World War II, he assisted the French underground resistance movement to move Christian and Jewish refugees from France to Switzerland. For a while he toyed with the idea of joining the British Air Force and parachuting into Germany for sabotage activity, but was persuaded not to do so.
The Holocaust awoke his interest in the Jewish problem, and after studying and considering the matter, he decided on the Zionist solution and volunteered to serve his historical homeland and the Jewish nation because of his inborn love of freedom and justice. This decision in particular compelled him to assist the Jewish youth in their fight to liberate their homeland; from this he came to understand the struggle and find his place there.
He arrived in Palestine as a tourist by train from Egypt on May 1st, 1946. He joined Kibbutz Kfar Giladi as a guest member, assisting them with his technical knowledge, as well as carrying out other obligations as a regular member.
Later, he was employed by the Palestine Electric Company in Haifa, working with them in their task of supplying electricity. While doing this job, he also joined the “Haganah.”
He was required to return to Switzerland to serve his twice-yearly two-month military service, and during this period learned new methods of demolition, as well as building; he also used the time to foster understanding amongst the Christians on Zionist matters.
He returned to Palestine in December 1947 in the early months of the War of Liberation. Passing as a Christian tourist, he had visited Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon for three weeks, returning with valuable information about their military forces. He brought with him working plans that he had acquired in his visits to enemy territory. This made the Haganah accept him without hesitation, whereas they had previously doubted him because of his Swiss nationality. He was therefore accepted as an explosives instructor in the “Yiftach” Brigade of the Palmach, in the upper Galilee. This work gave him much satisfaction.
However, six days later, on March 11th 1948, he was killed when attempting to defuse a land mine that was found on the road from Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar to Kibbutz Hulata. He was buried at Ayelet Hashachar, and on September 21st 1949 his body was re-interred at the Nachlat Yitzhak military cemetery.
Translated from Yizkor Website
Amendments by Machal researcher Joe Woolf