Tag #157038 - Interview #79438 (Hillel Kempler)

When my brother-in-law returned to Be’er Tuvia I went back to Tel Aviv. We didn’t have any money for the high school, it was very expensive. So my father and I decided that I would attend a vocational school. But there weren’t any real vocational schools. I wanted to be an electrical mechanic, and so we decided I would become an apprentice in a workshop. We found a placement for me. There were two German brothers, I think they were called Illenberg. One brother was an electrical technician or engineer. He had studied at the AEG in Berlin. These brothers were able to teach me a lot through German efficiency and trained me in precision. That enabled me to advance very quickly.  I don’t want to boast, but I do have a talent for electrical engineering. We mostly repaired generators. That was still during the war and there were no raw materials. We took parts from old machines, but there was no copper and we needed a lot of cooper wires. It was very educational for me to replace these copper wires through various combinations.  I worked and was otherwise very active in the Zionist party Poale Zion Smol; I was always busy! Ester and I were always together in the party, then we fell in love.