Fritz Jordan

Fritz Jordan was born in 1914 in Koblenz

Jordan was born in 1914 in Koblenz, Germany, to Selma and Leon, an officer in the German army. As a youth he was active in sports and hoped for a military career, but antisemitism and the Nazi rise to power blocked that path. He joined a Zionist youth movement, trained in farming in Luxembourg and France, and moved to the Land of Israel in August 1934.

He joined Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and worked in farming and in the gypsum quarry at Menahemia. During the Arab revolt he served in the Haganah field companies and in the Special Night Squads led by Orde Wingate. From Wingate he learned navigation and survival skills.

In World War II he volunteered for the British Pioneer Corps, fought near Tobruk, and in 1941 was sent to Greece. He was captured on April 29, 1941, jumped from a prisoner train, and spent half a year crossing Greece until he reached Turkey. He returned home, later served as a scout in Europe, and received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

He wrote the story of his escape in German, and poet Moshe Basok translated it into Hebrew as My Escape from Captivity. An English translation appeared in the United States in 1970, and a shortened edition was published in 1983.

In the War of Independence he joined the Golani Brigade and commanded a platoon on the Sejera front. A shell killed him on July 11, 1948. He was buried in Menahemia and moved in 1952 to the military cemetery in Nahariya.