His early years at elementary school coincided with the rise of Nazi Germany. In 1938, when he was 11, his family was expelled to Poland. In December of the same year, Marcus succeeded in reaching England with a group of refugee children, and was placed in a Jewish institute close to London, while his older brothers emigrated to Eretz Yisrael. Although educated in a foreign land, he grew up as a Zionist and as a proud Jew.
During the German blitz of World War II, the children in the institution were evacuated to a safer area in Whittingham in Scotland, where he spent two years at a preparation farm, and then returned to London. He completed a course at a seminar qualifying as a youth counselor and then returned to Scotland as an instructor/counselor at a preparation point near Edinburgh in the name of “Poalei Zion.”
At the age of 20, he decided to learn a trade and returned to London to qualify as a watchmaker. During that time, he organized a cultural class in the Maccabi framework, where Hebrew studies and work in plant nurseries were taught, leaving time for sports activities. He played for the Maccabi soccer team in London.
At the start of Israel’s War of Independence, he volunteered for the IDF within the framework of Machal. He received his basic military training in France and arrived in Israel in July 1948, where he joined one of the Etzioni battalions and was sent to Jerusalem.
On the second day of the Jewish New Year, Marcus Stemmer was seriously wounded at Arnona and evacuated to the military hospital in Jerusalem, where he died on 13th October 1948.
He was buried at Sheikh Badar “A” and on 30th August 1950 his body was re-interred at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.
Source: Translated from the Yizkor website by Joe Woolf