Dov Eisdorfer

* 1920

  • „Were you happy here?“ – „Happy?“ We did not think of happiness. We know we were pioneers of a Zionist organisation and did not really think about happiness. If I may tell my story: as soon as I arrived in Haifa, I started to study to be better educated.”

  • “In the early 1940 they told me I could leave, so I returned to Budapest. From Budapest I organised HaShomer HaTzair, I made them learn Hebrew as I was to make them ready for going to Palestine. In the early 1940 they asked me to leave for Transylvania.”

  • “I left for a couple of hours to see my parents, to say ,shalom’ and good-bye to them. Then I left. I was made the leader of a transport of about four hundred people. We travelled to Constanta, Romania, then took the ship to Istanbul and stayed about two three weeks in Kadiköy, Istanbul. Then we had to leave Turkey and took the train to Aleppo, from Aleppo we went across Syria and from Syria to Beirut. From Beirut we were taken by coach to the Palestinian border. Today it is called Rosh HaNikra in Hebrew, Ras An-naqura in Arabian. From there the young ones went to a kibbutz or to their families. Some of us were surrounded by the English army, I was arrested and spent a couple of days in Atlit where illegal immigrants were interned who arrived in Palestine at that time.“

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    Haifa, Izrael, 12.12.2016

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We didn’t think of happiness but Zionism

Dov Eisdorfer, bachelor, 1939
Dov Eisdorfer, bachelor, 1939
photo: archiv pamětníka

Dov Eisdorfer was born on June 21, 1920, in the town of Sevlyush in the then Carpathian Ruthenia (today Vinogradiv, Ukraine). He comes from a religious Jewish family of six children. His parents, who were farmers, moved to Michalovce because of work. Dov studied at the Hebrew grammar school in Mukachevo, where he graduated in 1939. Since fifteen he was active in the Zionist movement HaShomer HaZair. After graduation he was dispatched by the movement to Hungary, where his task was to organise illegally departure of young Zionists to Palestine. In September 1939 he was arrested for three weeks but on his release he returned to Budapest again. From early 1940 to May 1941 he worked for the movement in Transylvania and there he illegally organised preparation of movement members for the departure to Palestine. In 1941 he left with his sister as a HaShomer HaZair group leader to Palestine. On departure he was shortly kept in the Altlit camp. He settled down in a kibbutz, where he stayed for five year, later he worked in military focused machinery industry in Tel Aviv. In 1947 he received Hagana training and took part in the fight for independence of the State of Israel. He studied at Technion in Haifa, later lectured at the Faculty of Mechanics. In 1949 he married and had a family. Dov Eisdorfer lives in Haifa.