Mordechai Shimon Harrar, son of Machluf and Aysha (Chaya) Harrar (nee Kadosh) was born in British Mandatory Palestine on March 9, 1920 (19 Adar, 5680). His older brother’s name was Meir who was also born in British Mandatory Palestine. His parents, who were both born in Morocco, immigrated to Palestine as young children.
The Harrar Family lived in Tel Aviv bordering Jaffa. Machluf worked as a welder and at a candy factory called Snow Bar. When Mordechai Shimon was about fifteen years old, on July 9, 1935 (8 Tamuz 5695), his mother, Aysha Chaya, passed away and was buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem, in the Western Section for immigrants of Moroccan descent.
When the Second WW broke out, the Jewish settlement in Palestine called for young volunteers to join the British war effort and fight on the North African Front against the Germans and Italians. Mordechai Shimon volunteered to join the British Forces at the Sarrafend Camp (Be’er Ya’acov of today), probably during May 1940, and was given a military ID: Pal/11401. He was also given a British ID number 604 in the Royal Pioneer Corps (which was attached to the engineering corps).
The Royal Pioneer Corps was sent to the North African Western Desert. In March 1941, for fear of a German invasion, the Royal Pioneer Corps was withdrawn to Greece to prepare the basis for the British Expeditionary Force. It’s main mission was to unload the British Expeditionary Force’s military equipment and ammunition at the Greek port of Piraeus and load everything onto trains heading for Northern Greece, where the German invasion was expected. The 604th Company was active in the area of Larissa.The German invasion of Greece began on April 6,1942 on the Bulgarian border. On the 27th of April, the German forces reached Athens, the capital of Greece. When it was decided that the British troops need to withdraw, no such order reached the 604th Company. These soldiers were surrounded by the German enemy and because of very heavy fighting, they lost about half their men. During the night between April 28th and April 29th, 1941, while they were in Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese of Greece, they surrendered and were captured.
The chaos of the war was probably the reason that Mordechai Shimon managed to escape without being captured. He moved quickly through Greece and was finally caught and jailed in a prison in Athens. In July 1941, his name appeared on a list of missing soldiers in Greece. It is not clear what prison camps in Europe he had been in. His name appeared as a prisoner at the Stalag 18 Camp in Austria where several dozens of Jewish soldiers from Palestine were incarcerated. His prisoner number was 9568.
Meanwhile, while he was in prison abroad, his brother Meir Harrar, who had tuberculosis, passed away on the 8th of Sivan, 5704 (May 30, 1944) and was buried on the Mount of Olives, beside his mother. Meir and Mordechai Shimon’s father, who was a widower, married a woman who had a six-year-old daughter in September 1944.
During an exchange of prisoners in November 1944, Mordechai Shimon Harrar was returned to the British together with 60 other prisoners. After receiving initial treatment in England, the exchanged prisoners of war continued to receive treatment in Egypt and, in February 1945 they arrived back in Palestine. Mordechai Shimon’s condition was critical, after undergoing the difficulties of hiding out and then being captured and put into prison. He was hospitalized in the Military Hospital in Be’er Ya’acov (General Hospital160). He passed away there on the 19th of Nissan, 5705 (April 2, 1945). Mordechai Shimon was laid to rest beside his mother and brother on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem but a stone was never put up on his grave so he was declared a soldier whose burial site is unknown.
In July 2021, the Ministry of Defense placed a stone monument on Mordechai Shimon Harrar’s grave, correcting their seventy-five-year-old mistake.
Mordechai Shimon Harrar was also memorialized at the British Cemetery in Ramleh
on a plaque naming soldiers from the area who had died during WWII. Among the soldiers from the Royal Pioneer Corps, his name was listed as Harar M.S.
His father hosted a feast in his memory and honored the memory of his fallen son by having a Torah Scroll written dedicated to his memory and placed in a synagogue in Kfar Shalem. It was later moved to the synagogue Ner Leah in the Makor Baruch neighborhood of Jerusalem.