to his death and he is 96 years old.
Shraga Glaz (photo: courtesy of the family)
When he was 15 years old, Shraga (Faybush) was left alone in the world.
His whole family was murdered and he fled for his life.
On the eve of Yom Kippur he lay in a hole in a clearing to find shelter from the strong winds.
"I drew a sundial above the pit so that I would know what time it was and when to cook the potatoes for my meal before dark in order to prevent the glow of the fire that it creates at night," he later said.
"I remember well the sunset of that day, which looked like a red ball of fire that enveloped the trees of the forest. It was also the first time I burst into tears and decided that I would do everything to stay alive and come to Israel. My parents dreamed of this, and I will fulfill their dream."
Seven years later, Glaz fulfilled his dream and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael.
He founded a kibbutz and a family, was an officer in the IDF, an economist, construction and art expert. He passed away last week and is 96 years old.
Shraga Glaz was born in 1926 in Płowka, in the Wohlin district in eastern Poland to Reuven and Malka, an older brother to Pesia and Hinda.
Between the two world wars, about 600 Jews lived in Plovka - about a third of the town's residents.
They made a living from small trade and crafts.
The Glaz family had a flour mill.
There were Zionist parties in the town, a nest of "Hashomer Hatzair" and a branch of Beitar. There was also a Hebrew school of the "Tarbut" network in the town which was run by Yaakov Schneider-Sherid, later the Director General of the Ministry of Education and Culture and Yossi Sherid's father.
Shraga studied in the morning at a Polish school and in the afternoon at the Tarbut school.
With the beginning of the war, the Soviets took control of the area and on July 4, 1941 they withdrew.
Control of the city passed into the hands of the Ukrainians, who began robbing the Jews' property and conscripting them into forced labor.
The Germans entered the town in the second half of July 1941. They imposed ransom payments on the Jews and ordered them to establish a Judenrat.
On May 1, 1942, a ghetto was established in Plovka and Jews from all over the area were brought to it, and the number of residents was about 2,500.
The ghetto was liquidated on August 29, 1942;
2,250 of its inhabitants were taken to the killing pits and murdered there.
Dozens of the townspeople fled to the forests and villages and were helped by Polish peasants and Ukrainian Baptists.
Shraga was one of the survivors.
A local farmer helped him and every now and then he would come to his house, take a shower, change his clothes and get food.
Residents of a nearby village where his father's flour station was also helped him and brought him food when they went out into the forest.
Glaz inaugurates the founders' garden in Megiddo (photo: courtesy of the family)
In the forest he met six more Jews and they gathered in a group and built a kind of well-disguised bunker in the forest where they lived.
When they went out to collect food they would cover their tracks.
During the time they met with a group of partisans under the command of Russians and Shraga joined them with other Jews.
His baptism of fire was setting fire to the Germans' hay warehouses in Plovka.
When he was only 16.5 years old, he was added to the patrol department and his job was to collect intelligence on train traffic.
Based on the intelligence he gathered, a company was going out whose fighters' job was to jam the railroad and blow it up when a train with ammunition and supplies for the German army passed by.
When the Red Army began to advance and occupied the area of his town, he participated in the unveiling of the mass grave where his family was buried.
He hoped to recognize his parents and sisters.
When they reached the human skeletons, he saw strands of long hair that reminded him of his mother's and sister's hair.
He left the place and never returned.
Glaz with his friends from the "Habricha" organization (photo: courtesy of the family)
With the end of the war his dream was to immigrate to Israel.
Borsha joined the nucleus of Hashomer Hatzair, all of whose members are young people who are left without families.
Shraga was recruited to the "Escape" factory and was stationed in the Czech border town of Ash.
He and his friends would bring groups of immigrants who were organized in Prague and smuggle them into German territory, where they were taken to displaced persons camps for immigration to the Land of Israel.
On May 8, 1947, he boarded the ship "Hatikva" with 1,413 other applicants on the coast of La Spezia in Italy.
It was an old ship, 51 years old, that was built for the United States Army and after World War II was converted to transport bananas.
Eight days after their departure, when they approached the shores of Israel, the ship was intercepted by British destroyers.
After a violent struggle, the British soldiers took control of the ship and the hijackers were taken to a camp in Cyprus.
In the deportee camp, he began teaching children Hebrew and arithmetic and also sculpted sculptures on floors that had been dismantled from buildings.
Another job he was involved in was digging an escape tunnel from the camp.
The tunnel had already passed under the camp fence and was forty meters long, but collapsed and was exposed.
He managed to escape another way, but when he was already on the pier in Famagusta, he was caught and returned to the camp.
The sculptures sculpted by Glaz in the deportee camp in Cyprus
The sculptures sculpted by Shraga Glaz in the deportee camp in Cyprus (photo: courtesy of the family)
The sculptures sculpted by Shraga Glaz in the deportee camp in Cyprus (photo: courtesy of the family)
In April 1948, Shraga arrived at the port of Tel Aviv.
A few days later he was sent to guard the valley which was under attack by the Kaukji Salvation Army.
The kibbutz was shelled by cannon fire.
Sharga was given a rifle and a hand grenade and was placed in a position facing the enemy forces.
When he saw that it was difficult to build a position for an old-fashioned machine gun, he used the experience he gained in building the bunker in the forest and set up a proper position.
Given the impression of this, he was asked to establish additional positions.
Then he was added to the patrol class in Pitrala outside the settlement.
At the end of May he already participated in the battle to occupy Tel Megiddo and then in other operations in the area.
At the end of 1948, the settler institutions decided that the nucleus to which he belonged would establish a new kibbutz in the place where the outpost was near Tel Megiddo.
On February 2, 1948, Shraga and his friends climbed the hill, under heavy rain and stormy weather.
This is how he described that day: "Indescribable elation, young men and women who gathered and arrived from concentration camps, labor camps in Poland and the forests of the partisans, are today realizing their dream of coming to Israel and putting Megiddo back on the map, which stood in Shimmona for 2,000 years. A new settlement was born."
"I got to fulfill my dream," he described, "the vow I made on the eve of Yom Kippur in the woods, to do as much as I could to stay alive and fulfill my parents' dream, if they didn't get it, and I'm doing it for me and for them. And I'm here and the dream is coming true. And despite all the commotion and despite the weather In the stormy air five shacks and the foundations of the dining room shack emerge and stand on the furrow. The settlement is getting up, and despite the frozen bones under the water-soaked clothes the smile is evident on the faces of the young people, as they say we won, we are here!
The kibbutz was actually a front post in front of the Arab Legion outposts until the ceasefire agreement that pushed the border line towards Wadi Ara.
At the end of 1949, he went to the 6th cycle officers' course held in Netanya and after half a year he was a training officer in the 9th Brigade.
Many of the members of Megiddo carried the horrors of the Holocaust in their souls.
"Everyone tried to overcome the terrible past or 'hide' it," said Shraga.
Among the young friends he met Halina-Zaheva, also a Holocaust survivor.
"When I got to know her stories in detail, it became clear to me that everything I went through was nothing compared to what she went through," he said.
In 1950 Shraga and Zhava got married and the couple had two sons - Yair and Uzi.
Shraga and Gold Glaze (photo: courtesy of the family)
Shraga was appointed to a number of positions - area commander, kibbutz secretary and deputy commander of the cordon.
In addition, he continued to serve extended periods in the reserves and even went through a company commanders course under the command of Eric Sharon.
In 1955, he was drafted into the army for another year to lead an operation to fortify the settlements in the area, including the settlements in the Anak region that came up on the ground, on the border with Jordan.
He continued to serve in the reserves until the age of 56 with the rank of major.
In the 1960's he began to fulfill economic roles in his kibbutz and later as the coordinator of the construction department of the national kibbutz in the Western and Upper Galilee, where he led projects for the construction of many residences, factories and public buildings.
In the 1980s he worked at the Givat Habiva national kibbutz seminary, where he established the national kibbutz archive and an artists' house where art conferences and courses are held.
In 1975, his son Uzi enlisted in a patrol of the Israel Defense Forces and was seriously injured in a car rollover. Uzi was bedridden for weeks with his head immobilized. In this condition he could draw and read with the help of special glasses. One of his drawings became a bas-relief that he installed on the wall of a shelter in Megiddo. After he recovered and rehabilitated, He returned to the patrol's intelligence department and a few years later was appointed the unit's intelligence officer.
A relief he made based on a drawing by his son, Uzi (photo: official website, wall art survey website in Israel)
In his kibbutz, Shrega was an active participant in cultural events for many years and set up decorations for holidays.
In addition, he delved into the field of art and sculpted in iron, stone and ceramics.
Other hobbies he devoted time to were studying the knowledge of the land and archaeology.
As someone who lived near Tel Megiddo, he was fascinated by the field of archaeology, delved into it and was in contact with archaeologists who excavated there, including Israel Finkelstein and Yotam Tefer.
Following his love for archeology and his desire to commemorate the first kibbutz and the heritage of Megiddo, he initiated the establishment of an archaeological garden with a corner dedicated to the founders of the settlement.
His initiative was accepted and a few years ago it came to fruition and the memorial garden was established.
The story of his life was written by his daughter-in-law, Tal Ben-Non Glaz, in the book "Masha Haim".
At the end of the book, he wrote: "Yesterday is behind me, and without looking back, I strive with all my might towards 'tomorrow', another tomorrow, a tomorrow of resurrection, a tomorrow of continuity, to fulfill what my parents and sisters did not win and remain under the mound of earth, together with 2,500 men and women and their children on the Bukhov hill near the new Raplovka and the village of Sukhovolia. And here I am! There is a resurrection, there is tomorrow!"
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