He was shot in Cyprus and disappeared for 78 years: this is how his grave was located in Israel
Colonel Y. told Ron Koffman and Prof. Aryeh Eldad about the late Shlomo Haimson, the man who was shot by the British in Cyprus, buried as an unknown in Haifa, and finally identified through a particularly creative investigation.
After 78 long years during which his burial place was unknown, the grave of the fallen soldier Shlomo Haimson, who was killed by the British in Cyprus, has been located. Colonel Y., head of the investigation team for locating fallen soldiers whose burial place is unknown, told Haimson's story to Prof. Aryeh Eldad and Ron Koffman on 103FM radio, and detailed how the unit he heads managed to track him down.
"His partner gives birth to Miriam, their daughter, and he decides with a group of illegal immigrants to cut the fences and escape. On the way, they encounter someone or they simply shoot at him - he is killed, and buried in the 'Margot' cemetery, near Nicosia," the officer said.
113 Jews who were in the detention camps were buried in the cemetery, and in 1970 it was decided to transfer their remains to Israel. They were buried in Haifa, but some were not identified, as was the case with Haimson's grave, which was declared unknown. "A process of gathering information was carried out here, in which members of the Cyprus Illegal Immigrants Association and our researcher participated. We tried to locate materials everywhere possible: both abroad and in Cyprus itself," he said.
They also tried to trace the footsteps of the missing using archive photos, and even tried to reconstruct the second burial process at the cemetery in Haifa, in order to understand who was buried there. "When you manage to perform a full reconstruction, you identify those buried to the right and left. We actually understood that the cemetery was moved in its entirety from the cemetery in Cyprus. In such a case, the identification for us is a perfect identification."
Little Miriam is now a 78-year-old woman. Y. said that the widow and her baby daughter eventually immigrated to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Magen. Years later, the mother remarried and emigrated to Brazil. "The whole family lives in Rio de Janeiro," he said. The team updated the family last Monday, after their loved one's remains were identified. But the work is not over. "There are 165 more fallen soldiers whose burial place has been unknown since the War of Independence," Y. updated, with the hope that they will be found soon.
