This book contains one of the most inspiring pages in the history of Hungarian Jewry- the recruitment and organisation of the Zionist Youth Movement in the year 1944, during the Nazi occupation. The youth movements mounted resistance against the Nazi conquerors and their Hungarian helpers, and were able to rescue many Jewish youth from the claws of extermination, as well as tens of thousands of Jews from Budapest and many, many more from among the prisoners and from forced labour camps throughout Hungary. This anthology presents 420 personalities from among the Zionist underground activists in Hungary in the year 1944, with their pictures and brief biographies. The material in this book was assembled sixty years after the events, and therefore record retrieval was a formidable challenge, yet we were able to locate and find details of approximately a third of the resistance activists. This commendable compilation deserves the appreciation and pride of every Jew. In particular it is an exemplary model for the young generation. The anthology was published in Hebrew (2004) by the Israeli non-profit Society for the Research of the History of the Zionist Youth Movement in Hungary and in English (2007) in conjunction with Gefen Publishing House.
David Gur was born in Hungary in the year of 1926. After matriculation he joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Budapest, where the organization was compelled to act under illegal conditions. After the occupation of Hungary by the Germans in 1944 he went underground by means of Aryan documents. He joined the underground workshop team for forging documents, and in due course he took over the chief authority for the continual operation of the workshop. This workshop served the clandestine activities of all of the Jewish youth movements, and of the Zionist Organization, and unaffiliated Jews, and most of the non-Jewish resistance groups. At the end of December 1944 David Gur was arrested and all the contents of the workshop were confiscated. From the central military prison of Budapest He was liberated by my comrades by means of a daring exploit. Until the time of Gur's emigration to Israel, in the year of 1949, he played major part in various Zionist Institutions, such as Hapoel, and was on the staff of the Hagana, He became the last of the commanders of the Briha in Hungary. In the year 1956 David graduated the Technion, Haifa, as civil engineer. Between the years 1963 2005 he owned and managed an office of planning and executing engineering projects. In the year 1985 David Gur was one of the founders of The Society for the Research of the History of the Zionist Youth Movement in Hungary and since then I hold the position of the executive president. David Gur is married to
