The late Shmuel Kokush was killed in the battle of Hamadia in the Suez Canal • At that time, not far away, his brother Elimelech was fighting on the Chinese farm • “When I found out about his fall, I hid from my parents.
I searched for him among the pictures of the prisoners - but inside I knew the truth "
Elimelech bought with a picture of his brother Shmuel Kokosh
Photo:
Joshua Joseph
At age 67, Elimelech Kana from Ramat Gan, an IDF invalid, remembers fighting in the Yom Kippur War as if it was still going on.
While fighting in the 890th Paratroopers Regiment in the area of the Chinese farm, near the Suez Canal, his brother who is one year and eight months older, the late Shmuel Kokosh , Fought as a armorer in the 14th Brigade.
"Shmuel was 21 at the time of his fall, and we fought on the same front," says Kana in an exciting meeting with "Israel Today."
"My brother and I were close during the fighting. I was not informed of his death. I kept thinking about him, because I saw a lot of armored personnel on the scene who came to help and were killed next to us, and our guys pulled them out of the burnt tank, and rolled them out to extinguish. When I returned exhausted. "Two armored personnel carriers and I asked them about Shmuel Kokosh, but I did not identify as his brother. They told me he had been killed a week before," Kana shares with great pain.
Elimelech bought a number about the difficult moment when he heard about the bitter news on the ground.
"I always had a tremendous fear of him, and wanted the bitter fate and my paths crossed with the guys who fought with him," he says, "they described him to me. I told my commander I had to see what was going on in the house. I doubted it might be true, but "I knew in my heart that the fate of the family was doomed. When I got home, the parents did not know anything, nor did I tell them anything for a month and a half, until they came to inform them."
He said, "I kept it inside me. I only shared Shmuel's fiancée, Sarah, and went back to the battalion to fight. At nights I did not sleep, I hoped there might be a spark of life and looked for it among the captives, but inside I knew the truth. Only after a while did I return home and see "The parents are mourning the floor. I understood that they were informed. I then received a letter from the commander of the Northern Command that I was an only child and had to leave the fighting. We were two sons of Holocaust survivors, so it was also very difficult to tell parents.
The late Shmuel Kokush had to be on release when the Yom Kippur War broke out. In the past year, Elimelech's son, the late Shmuel's nephew, searched for the friends who fought with him and found some of them on Facebook, and so Elimelech heard from them about his brother, who was 21 at the time of his fall. .
"Be an entertainer and loved"
"Friends described him as an entertainer and a loved one. I knew that too, but I was glad to hear it from them. They said he was a worldly hunk and picked up someone who was depressed around him. They said they laughed at him for getting married. They called him a sucker for marrying the first girl. "He laughed at them back that he would be the first with a child in the group. 'Blondie' was one of his nicknames. He was the guy from Tirat Carmel, the guys' clown. A handsome guy and an exemplary man. A kind-hearted man who loves to help friends and loves the Land of Israel."