By Samuel (Shlomo) Pivnik
I was born in Poland in 1928 into an Orthodox family. My parents, Leib and Feigel Pivnik, had four sons and two daughters. In the Spring of 1943 our town was made “Jeudenrein” and we were all deported to Auschwitz.
Only one brother and I survived. I met him after the war in Germany where we both worked for the occupation forces in the French Zone.
As we had relatives in London, we went to England, where I joined a Zionist movement. In the Spring of 1948, I left to fight for a Jewish home in Palestine.
On my arrival, I was billeted at Tel-Litwinsky army camp where I was mobilized into the newly-formed 79th Armored Battalion of the 7th Brigade.
I saw a great deal of action: we liberated Jish (Gush Halav) and Sasa, in the Galilee. One day my armored car was hit by a shell just above the fuel tank. We were lucky that the shell did not penetrate the tank as the whole vehicle would have gone up in flames. One of our crew suffered a serious wound to one leg, the rest of us sustained just minor injuries, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that Kaukji’s Arab Liberation Army had been defeated.
The roads to the kibbutzim of the eastern and upper Galilee were now cleared of enemies and I could now visit my cousin Zvi Wanderman at Kibbutz Dafna without hindrance.
I was in an Anglo-Saxon brigade and can only remember the names of two of my comrades – Hershel Margolius and Max Wolinsky, who were in the 72nd Battalion. When other volunteers of the Brigade started to return to England, the cry was “We’re going home.” I also returned to England but with pride in knowing that I had fought for the survival of the State of Israel, the country of my own People.