Meir Kolt Koltonovitz
My father, Me'ir Koltonovitz/ written by Avraham Kolt.
My father, Me'ir Koltonovitz z"l, was born on the first night of Hannuka, the 5th of December, 1912 in Vilna, Lithuania, which was then part of Poland. His parents, Avraham Yitzhak and Sirrel Sonia Koltonovitz perished in the Holocaust. My father had two sisters and one brother. His two sisters also perished and his brother disappeared during the Holocaust.
My grandfather, Avraham, whose namesake I am, was born in Vilna in 1886. He was a traditional Jew and a proud Zionist, an insurance agent who lived in Vilna. My grandmother, Sirrel Sonia (née Milikovsky), was born in 1886 in Kerbo, near Vilna. They were married in 1909.
In 1942 my grandparents and their 2 daughters were shot dead by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators in the Ponar forest near Vilna, after Vilna Ghetto 2 was destroyed. My aunt Miriam (Minna), who was born in 1911, was a professor of mathematics at Vilna University. My aunt Batya, born in 1924, who was my grandparents' youngest daughter, was a high school student before the Holocaust. My uncle, Boris, was born in 1916 in Vilna. During the war he fled Vilna when it was occupied by the Germans and, apparently, joined the Red Army and disappeared. The last contact with him was in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Ever since then we have been searching for him across the globe. My late father initiated the search and since his death, I have continued but have had no success.
My father's sister, Sara, came to Israel after my father and married Dr. Zvi Ya'akovi z"l. They had two daughters, Batya and, Miriam. Sara Ya'akovi passed away in 1978.
My father, Me'ir z"l, came from a Zionist family, studied at an improvised heder and graduated from the Herzliya high school at the age of 16.
He arrived in Israel just prior to Pesach in 1933 from Warsaw on the Martha Washington that sailed from Trieste to Haifa, with a group of Hashomer Hatzair from Vilna (an agricultural training group—Bar-Kochva) that established the kibbutz Mesilot near Ness Ziona (the kibbutz subsequently moved to the Bet She'an valley).
After he left the kibbutz, he moved to Tel Aviv where he worked building the port of Tel Aviv. My father joined the Hagana and the sea force of the Palmach (Palyam) whose activities included escorting illegal immigrants to Palestine despite the British White Paper that restricted the entry of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine. My father was a member of the sea division of Hapoel Yarkon in Tel Aviv under the leadership of Catriel Yaffe z"l.
My father was a friend of the 23 yordei hasira (23 sea commandos who disappeared during an operation on their way to destroy oil refineries in Tripoli, together with a British officer, Major Palmer, in 1941).
My parents were married in 1945 in Kfar Ganim (Petah Tiqva) by Rabbi Tzvik z"l. I have been living in Kfar Ganim for over 40 years, close to where my parents were married.
It is interesting to note how my father, a left-wing Zionist, married my mother who was a staunch Revisionist (which reminds me, though vastly different, of marriages between mitnagdim and the hassidim of my late grandparents' generation).
After their marriage my parents lived in Holon and during the War of Independence they fled to Tel Aviv. During the war my father was an army driver; after the war he worked as a truck driver and then as a self-employed taxi driver.
My father was an outstanding swimmer, first in Vilna and later in Tel Aviv. I remember him telling me that, as a child, he used to dig out the ice on the Vilna river and dive below the frozen water of the river.
He was a kind man, smart, hard-working, devoted and a good father to his children, a genuine Zionist. He died of cancer (apparently stomach cancer and cancer of the prostate) on the 13th of March, 1991 and is buried at the Kiryat Sha'ul cemetery in Tel Aviv.
In memory of the saintly members of the Koltonovitz family who were murdered at Ponar:
Grandfather: Reb Avraham Yitzhak Koltonovitz, the son of Reb Hayim z"l and Sara z"l, who perished in the Holocaust.
Grandmother: Sirrel Sonia Koltonovitz, the daughter of Reb Hayim Milikovsky z"l and Batya Taibe Levin z"l, who perished in the Holocaust.
Aunt: Miriam Koltonovitz, the daughter of Reb Avraham Yitzhak z"l and Sirrel Sonia z"l, who perished in the Holocaust.
Aunt: Batya Koltonovitz, the daughter of Reb Avraham Yitzhak z"l and Sirrel Sonia z"l, who perished in the Holocaust.
Uncle: Reb Baruch Koltonovitz z"l, the son of Reb Avraham Yitzhak z"l and Sirrel Sonia z"l, whose place of burial is unknown.
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