Naming the Soldiers: A Special Joint Project by the National Library and Facebook

A special project by the National Library in collaboration with Facebook Israel in honor of the country's 71st Independence Day - come identify and tag your loved ones, family members and friends in these rare and historic images of IDF soldiers from the National Library collections

Photo shows: IDF soldiers with armour support acting on the Golan Hights with its new Israeli Merkava tanks

Among the many treasures preserved in the National Library of Israel are thousands of photographs documenting the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces throughout the history of the State of Israel. As part of the massive digitization project undertaken by the Library in recent years, these old photographs are being brought back to life, with the yellowing negatives being converted into high resolution images.

However, in many cases the Library is lacking information relating to the identities of the soldiers appearing in the photographs – and that’s where you come in…

Last summer, the National Library and Facebook Israel launched a joint project dedicated to making Israel’s cultural treasures accessible to the general public. As part of this ongoing initiative, today we are uploading a series of photo albums featuring images of IDF soldiers taken during Israel’s various wars in the past. We hereby invite the public to identify and tag their loved ones, family members and friends who served in these wars. In this way, their names will be commemorated in the history pages of the State of Israel, their memories preserved for the benefit of future generations alongside other Israeli cultural treasures of at the National Library.

The National Library collection includes more than 2.5 million photographs documenting the history of the Land and State of Israel. This is the world’s largest collection of Israeli photographs spanning a period of over 150 years. This unique assortment of photographs in fact includes several different collections, most notably the Dan Hadani Collection – an archive of more than a million photographs documenting almost every event in the history of the country. For decades, Dan Hadani and his team of press photographers documented political and cultural events, as well as wars and periods of national mourning. The photographers accompanied IDF soldiers during the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, during the battles in Sinai and the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War, and during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon. Wherever soldiers were sent to fight and defend the State, these photographers would follow.

Dan Hadani donated the collection to the National Library, where it will be preserved for future generations, but the Library staff encountered a problem: the information accompanying the photographs was not always complete. In many cases, it includes only the location and date of the photograph – “1982, Peace for Galilee”, is a typical example. In light of this, the Library decided to turn to the general public, and with the help of Facebook Israel we are now distributing these photographs to as many people as possible – so that they can help provide the most important information of all – who are the soldiers who appear in the pictures and what are the stories behind them.

“We are happy to share with the Israeli public the important task of preserving the culture and heritage of the State of Israel,” says Yaron Deutscher, head of the National Library’s Digital Access Division. “We are confident that through this cooperation with Facebook, which enables us to extract these cultural treasures from the archives of the Library and make them accessible to large audiences, a great deal of information will be gathered, enabling students, researchers and the general public to know more about what has happened here since the establishment of the State.”

Ahead of Israel’s Independence Day, the photographs are being uploaded to the National Library’s Facebook page, while the information received from the public will be preserved in the Library’s catalog, alongside cultural treasures of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, so that the sons and daughters of future generations will be able to know and understand more about what has transpired here over the past 71 years. This is a long-term project, and in the coming months we will share more and more images with the public.

Adi Soffer-Teeni, GM of Facebook Israel: “Today in the digital age we see a change in the ability to tell the story of the establishment of the State. We can now tell that story in a profound way that makes the history and the people who were there tangible and accessible to the public. A state’s past is one of the greatest assets it has and it outlines what it is and what it will be. This treasure trove of images tells the story of the State throughout its various stages and connects us to the people who were there and thanks to whom we are now celebrating our 71st Independence Day. I am very excited about this and I hope that we will be able to connect names to faces in these exceptionally rare photographs.”

 

Click on the links below to see the full albums

The War of Independence

A soldier leading supply-mules to the Barkan outpost on Mt. Gilboa during the War of Independence, 1948, from the Visual Memory Collection, the Bitmuna Collections, the Kibbutz Heftziba Collection.
A soldier leading supply-mules to the Barkan outpost on Mt. Gilboa during the War of Independence, 1948, from the Visual Memory Collection, the Bitmuna Collections, the Kibbutz Heftziba Collection.

The Sinai Campaign

Soldiers on leave following the Sinai Campaign, 1956, from the Eddie Hirschbein Collection, the Bitmuna Collections
Soldiers on leave following the Sinai Campaign, 1956, from the Eddie Hirschbein Collection, the Bitmuna Collections

The Six Day War

Soldiers in the Negev desert, 1967, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
Soldiers in the Negev desert, 1967, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

The War of Attrition

The IDF in Sinai, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
The IDF in Sinai, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

The Yom Kippur War

Soldiers enjoying a performance by singer Dvora Havkin, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
Soldiers enjoying a performance by singer Dvora Havkin, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

Operation Peace for Galilee (The First Lebanon War)

Soldiers returning from Lebanon, 1982, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
Soldiers returning from Lebanon, 1982, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

The IDF in the 1970s

The Women's Corps, 1970, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
The Women’s Corps, 1970, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

The IDF in the 1990s

A soldier prays at the Western Wall, 1989, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection
A soldier prays at the Western Wall, 1989, photo: IPPA staff, the Dan Hadani Collection

 

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The Kabbalistic Ceremony That Helped to Identify the Fallen Soldiers

When the thirty-five fallen soldiers of a legendary military convoy were brought for burial at Mt. Herzl, following Israel's War of Independence, only twenty-three could be identified with certainty. To resolve the problem, Rabbi Aryeh Levin performed a little-known Kabbalistic ritual.

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The funeral of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, 1948. Photo: Historical Archives of Gush Etzion

Twice, the funeral procession descended from the village to the lower slopes of the hill above the wadi, to where a mass grave had been dug in the young pine forest. Those carrying the stretchers with the dead, soldiers, members of the settlement, and relatives walked silently down the sloping path. A heartbreaking sight was a mother walking silently behind a stretcher, her hand supporting the head of her only son, which protruded slightly from under the cover draped over the stretcher—as if her son were alive and his mother’s caress would soothe him (“Yoman Kfar Etzion” [Hebrew], January 18th, 1948).

On the night between the 15th and 16th of January, 1948, thirty-five members of a convoy, commanded by Danny Mass, set out on a mission to deliver supplies to besieged Gush Etzion (the “Etzion Bloc”, in English), a cluster of settlements in the West Bank, just south of Jerusalem. Before dawn the unit was discovered and surrounded by thousands of Arab fighters.  All thirty-five members of the convoy were killed in a battle that lasted the entire day. They have come to be known in Hebrew as the Lamed-Heh (ל”ה), after the two letters which together indicate the number thirty-five.

A Hebrew obituary notice for the fallen "35 Heroes of the Nation"
A Hebrew obituary notice for the fallen “35 Heroes of the Nation”

Twelve Graves Remained Unidentified

Two days later, the bodies were discovered by Hamish Dugan, chief of the British police in Hebron. He intended to bring them to burial in Kfar Etzion, but before he could so, Arabs residents of the nearby village of Surif mutilated the bodies beyond recognition. This led, later, to the problem of identifying the dead.

The funeral of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, 1948. Photo: Historical Archives of Gush Etzion
The funeral of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, 1948. Photo: Historical Archives of Gush Etzion

 

The funeral of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, 1948. Photo: Historical Archives of Gush Etzion
The funeral of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, 1948. Photo: Historical Archives of Gush Etzion

A few months after the end of the War of Independence, in late 1949, the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Shlomo Goren, initiated a mission to bring the bodies of Gush Etzion’s fallen defenders, including the Convoy of the Thirty-Five, for reburial at the national military cemetery on Mount Herzl.

The burial site of the Thirty-Five on Mt. Herzl

The bodies had been identified for the temporary burial in Kfar Etzion with great effort, but after the fall of Gush Etzion, the burial details were lost including the information of who was buried where. As a result, when the bodies were brought for permanent burial at Mount Herzl it was necessary to re-identify the bodies, and only twenty-three of them could be determined with certainty. Twelve graves remained unidentified. The families of these twelve fallen soldiers approached Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, who suggested they contact Rabbi Aryeh Levin and ask him to perform a Kabbalistic ceremony known as Goral HaGra [“The Lottery of the Vilna Gaon”] in order to identify the bodies.

The Verses that Miraculously Provided Answers

Rabbi Aryeh Levin was known for his kindness. He was called the “Rabbi of the Prisoners” for his habit of writing letters to prisoners and visiting them every Sabbath to visit them in their jail cells to lift their spirits during the British Mandate period. He was particularly known for his visits to the imprisoned members of the underground movements and those headed for the gallows. He also regularly visited the Hansen Leper Hospital in Jerusalem’s Talbiyeh neighborhood to offer encouragement and comfort to the residents. He himself participated in the funeral arrangements and identification of the bodies before the burial of the fallen of Kfar Etzion in 1948.

Goral HaGra, a ritual attributed to the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman), is conducted by randomly opening a bible and linking the verses on the page to the matter at hand. The purpose of the ceremony is to find answers to a question of great importance. If there is no hint in the verse, one skips to the next verse that begins with the last letter of the previous verse.

Rabbi Aryeh Levin. Photo: the Eddie Hirschbein Collection at the National Library of Israel
Rabbi Aryeh Levin. Photo: the Eddie Hirschbein Collection at the National Library of Israel

At first, Rabbi Levin refused to perform the mystical ritual, but after being convinced that it would help the bereaved families gain a measure of closure—he acquiesced. The Rabbi was given both a list of the fallen whose burial places were unknown and a sketch of the unidentified graves (there was no need to dig up graves or desecrate the existing burial sites). He went over the sketch, one grave at a time, and tried to affix a verse to each.

The bible printed in Amsterdam in 1701 used by Rabbi Aryeh Levin for the ceremony. Photo from the book Ish Tzadik Haya by Simcha Raz

According to the book by Simcha Raz, Ish Tzadik Haya (“There was a Righteous Man” [Hebrew]), the Rabbi’s work was miraculously swift. At first, a few general verses appeared that contained hints of the letters Lamed-Heh followed by eleven verses in rapid succession that hinted at the names of the dead according to the order of their burial in the sketch. Some of the verses even contained the specific name of the deceased. In others, there was a clear hint. No verse was found for the body of the twelfth fallen soldier, Jacob Kotik z”l, but at this point there was no need, since the identification of the other eleven left no doubt as to where he was buried.

A record of the Goral HaGra ritual performed for the twelve graves at the burial site of the Thirty-Five on Mount Herzl. From the book Ish Tzadik Haya.

Twelve Candles Illuminated the Eastern Wall

Journalist Yitzhak Dish described the ceremony:

“It was Thursday, night time. They went upstairs to the yeshiva located in the attic of the small, modest house of Rabbi Aryeh, in the Mishkenot Yisrael neighborhood (a small neighborhood near the Mahane Yehuda market). In the darkened hall, twelve candles were lit, which illuminated the eastern wall next to which was the Torah Ark. Those present included: Rabbi Aryeh along with his son-in-law and son. Two of the parents of the deceased were also in attendance: Mr. Reuven Mass and Mr. Yitzhak Dov HaCohen Persitz. They began with the recitation of Psalms.

A sacred silence prevailed. The burning candles added to the sense of awe. They opened the Bible randomly without looking for a particular page. After each opening, they leafed through it again, seven times, and repeated the act seven times and decided that the findings would determine to whom each grave belonged before marking the tombstone. And this is the rule that was followed: the last verse on the page must include the name or a hint of the name of one of those whose identity is being sought.”

 

The article published in Herut on May 21st, 1965. Click on the picture to read the article [Hebrew].

Sometimes it’s best to let the departed be. Through the generations, various rabbis have voiced reservations about this custom, which is supposedly aided by magical means. Despite the progress of science, to this day none of the members of the families of the twelve have asked for the bodies to be identified using more advanced methods such as DNA markers, and the fallen of the Convoy the Thirty-Five remain buried based on the identification determined by the Goral HaGra.

Rabbi Levin lived for years on Mount Gerizim Street in the Mishkenot Yisrael neighborhood in Jerusalem. After his death, this street as well as streets in other cities in Israel were named after him. In July 2005, the Israel Coins and Medals Corporation issued a commemorative medal and a stamp bearing his portrait was also published.

 

 

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Giving a Face to the Fallen: Uncovering the Life of the Late Menachem Baumgarten

In May 1943, a mysterious Hebrew soldier was among the hundreds killed when German bombers struck the British ship, SS Erinpura. Documents found in the National Library shed light on the life of a young man who perished at sea

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The SS Erinpura and the late Menachem Baumgarten

In May 1943, a soldier from the Land of Israel, Menachem Baumgarten, was killed along with 138 of his Jewish comrades when German bombers struck the British ship, SS Erinpura.

Details of Baumgarten’s story and identity were sparse. But, after diligent research, utilizing the resources of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, details and documents have been uncovered that offer at least a partial picture of the young Jew who perished at sea on his way to fight the Germans.

 

•Menachem Baumgarten and his comrades from the 462 Transport Company. Baumgarten is the crouching figure on the far left. From the book, The Hebrew Transport Company in World War II. Tel Aviv, 1994
Menachem Baumgarten and his comrades from the 462 Transport Company. Baumgarten is the crouching figure on the far left. From the book, “The Hebrew Transport Company in World War II” [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv, 1994

May 1, 1943. A convoy of British ships en route from Alexandria to Malta is spotted and attacked by a 12 plane German bomber squadron. The brunt of the attack is focused on the SS Erinpura, carrying more than a thousand soldiers and crew members. 664 soldiers are killed, including 139 soldiers from the Land of Israel who had enlisted in the British Army.

 

Announcement published in the newspaper, HaMashkif, in regard to missing persons who had perished at sea (Menachem Baumgarten's name is marked in yellow). Click for the full article on the Historical Press website
Announcement published in the newspaper, HaMashkif, in regard to missing persons who had perished at sea (Menachem Baumgarten’s name is marked in yellow). Click for the full article on the Historical Jewish Press website

Among those killed in the attack is Menachem (Leopold) Baumgarten. Information about the young man was almost nonexistent. Other than his name, his year of birth and a few notes regarding his activities and movements throughout the years, there was almost no record of the young man’s existence.

 

Baumgarten’s picture on the Izkor website
Baumgarten’s picture on the Izkor website

 

The volunteer organization, “Giving a Face to the Fallen“, initiated an attempt to obtain more information about Baumgarten by contacting the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People at the National Library. The archive staff meticulously combed through thousands of files, mainly focusing on official appeals to immigrate to the Land of Israel from Vienna, which saw a great influx between the years 1938-1940.

 

The SS Erinpura memorial at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. Photo: Dr. Avishai Teicher
The SS Erinpura memorial at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. Photo: Dr. Avishai Teicher

The search finally bore fruit when the archive staff discovered Baumgarten’s file in the Vienna Jewish Community Archives. The file revealed previously unknown details about the young soldier. The document included Baumgarten’s exact birthdate and birthplace, as well as a small amount of detail about his background and family. Documents found in the Zionist Archives provided additional information, including the date of his emigration to Mandatory Palestine (August 16, 1939). His Youth Aliyah card, which was also unearthed in the search, documented Menachem’s placement at Kibbutz Tel Yosef upon his arrival in the Land of Israel and his subsequent departure from the Kibbutz on June 8, 1941, in order to enlist in the 462 Transport Company. The Yad Vashem archive also provided details that further serve to complete a portrait of Menachem Baumgarten.

 

Here are some of the documents found in the Vienna Archive:

 

This emigration questionnaire reveals, among other things, Baumgarten’s exact date of birth - December 3, 1923
This emigration questionnaire reveals, among other things, Baumgarten’s exact date of birth: December 3, 1923

 

The questionnaire also reveals the names of Menachem's relatives - including his mother Irma, his brother Josef, and his sister Edith
The questionnaire also reveals the names of Menachem’s relatives – including his mother Irma, his brother Josef, and his sister Edith

 

 

Translation of the above document:

Attention final processing!

Leopold Baumgarten, a Jew, according to his beliefs. Completely without means, applied to the social welfare office in his area of residence, his father is deceased.

Applicant is traveling with Youth Aliyah to Palestine on 15.8.1939.

In regard to his travel, he cannot afford to pay for his travel expenses, therefore he directs the expenses of the (immigration) contract to the Palestine Office (RM 166.35 + £ 1.14).

(RM – German currency, £ – Sterling)

The applicant is referred to final processing.

25.7.1939

 

 

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A Personal Diary from the Łódź Ghetto, Kept in the Margins of a Prayer Book

"3/12/1941 - My heart is burning and my body is freezing. My head is hurting beyond all reason. Why? Is all justice forsaken?"

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3/12/1941 – “On the 26th of October, about 10,000 people were deported from Piatricawa Street. Around 100 Jews were reported killed, but there is talk of more. On the second day of Adar, my parents fled to Słomniki with just one coat between them. Their situation is very bad. My heart is burning and my body is freezing. My head is hurting beyond all reason. Why? Is all justice forsaken?”

As the years go by, we look back with increasingly greater difficulty to fully grasp what transpired in the ghettos of Europe. As fewer survivors live among us, first-hand, written accounts have become all the more crucial.

A prime example of this is the personal diary kept by Menachem Oppenheim in the Łódź Ghetto. Following the war, it was found among the ruins of the Ghetto. The book was donated to the National Library in the 1950s. What makes the diary truly unique is that it was written in the margins of a siddur, a Jewish prayer book. Menachem Oppenheim lived in the Ghetto from the winter of 1941 to the summer of 1944. He wrote dozens of entries in Hebrew and Yiddish on the pages of the prayer book. He utilized the margins of the pages and the space between the printed verses and paragraphs, exploiting any blank area on the pages of the prayer book. As far as we know, Oppenheim perished in Auschwitz like most Jews who managed to survive in the Łódź Ghetto until its liquidation by the Nazis at the end of August 1944.

 

3/8/1942 – “Two years have passed since the Jews were incarcerated in the ghetto. A loaf of bread costs sixty marks… Once again, deportation notices have been sent.”

 

From his diary, we learn that Menachem Oppenheim was 33 years old when he was imprisoned in the Ghetto. He was a religious Zionist, married with children. His wife and two daughters managed to escape the Ghetto just before it was locked down. Menachem worked in a carpentry shop and, at one point, was even imprisoned in the Ghetto jail.

3/10/1942 – “The deportation continues. I saw an old man and woman, who looked to be about 80 years old, pulling a handcart to the train station for their deportation… They will be dead before they reach the next stop… They are deporting people to the grave…”

The great importance of Oppenheim’s diary entries lies in his daily documentation of life in the Ghetto: working conditions, police activities, food distribution, labor, hunger, diseases, and Menachem Oppenheim’s reflections on the effect of Ghetto life on himself and his friends, which were somewhere between hope and despair, between illusion and disappointment. The diary also contains a specific record of religious life in the Ghetto and tells of how the Jews attempted to observe the holidays, what they ate on Passover, and how they prayed to God while dwelling in the hellish surroundings they found themselves in.

 

4/9/1942 – “Passover 5702.  In the Ghetto there is great hunger. Only rye matzah, watery soup, and beetroot… Because of the nagging hunger, many people ate bread and so did I. The Passover Seder was prepared with only matzah and black coffee… This is my third Passover without my family. And in Passover 1942 I ate chametz for the first time…”

 

Oppenheim was a gifted literary talent. His writing is beautiful and eloquent. He was probably a person with a broad education and a cultural outlook. As noted, Menachem Oppenheim evidently perished at Auschwitz. The fate of his wife and two daughters is unknown. His diary resurfaced in the 1950s in a Jerusalem bookstore. The Sephardic Derech Ha-Hayim prayer book came to the attention of biblical scholar, Professor Mordechai Zer Kavod (Ehrenkranz), who translated the personal diary within the prayer book from Yiddish before donating it to the National Library.

3/19/1942 – “After an eight week hiatus, I received 2 kilograms of wild carrots and 1 kilogram of carrots on the family register.”

Menachem Oppenheim’s diary is one item from a very large collection of manuscripts that were donated to the National Library in the wake of the Holocaust and World War II.

View Menachem Oppenheim’s entire personal diary

 

 

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