The Grandson’s Revenge

"Baruch Shub was born in Vilna, Lithuania, to a religious but not extreme family. His father had a thriving paper business and the family lived a comfortable life. In 1940 the Red Army occupied the Baltic States and the Communists requisitioned the family business.

In 1941 the Germans invaded Russia – many Jews were killed and the Shub family found itself living in the Jewish Ghetto with another five people in one room. Baruch had fled with his father and sister, but got back to Vilna later on, where he had escaped the Ghetto to join the partisans. Baruch has participated in missions such as taking down telephone wires, bombing of train rails and obtaining food and weapons from Nazis’ camps. On July 7, 1944 his unit received instructions to emerge from the forests and to participate in the retaking of Vilna. Back in Vilna Baruch had learnt that his whole family had been murdered, his father just two days before his arrival at the city. A German officer had beaten him to death after he had refused to make a bag from Torah parchment scrolls – he was found with a note in his clenched fist saying “If you see my son, tell him to avenge our death” Baruch joined the Dror camp, by Aliya Bet, the organization of “illegal” immigration to Palestine, where he has also met Nelly, his future wife, for the first time. When they arrived to Israel, she went to Kibbutz Shefayim and he to Kibbutz Beit Zera, and they met again two year later at the beach of Tel Aviv. They got married and had two sons, both grew up to be pilots at the Israeli air force. The Yom Kippur War turned them into a fighting family – Baruch delivered bombs from America in civilian aircraft, Ronny, the younger son, unloaded them at Lod and Yossi dropped them on the enemy positions. One eve, on Memorial Day 2017, more than 100 people gathered in the house of Dr. Yossi Shub and his wife Vered in Moshav Zovit to hear the story of Baruch Shub. When asked if his decision to become a pilot was related to his father’s story, Yossi answered: “I have no particular sentiments with regard to Masada or Jerusalem. My determination to be a fighter – not necessarily in the air force – was connected to the 100 years of experiences of my close family, starting with my grandfather, whom I never knew, who was a soldier in the First World War.” Yossi says the revenge in his grandfather’s note was achieved by his father starting a family in Israel."