Sarah Rachela Shoshana Blank was the daughter of Gershon and Leiba (Shneider) Blank. She was born on March 7, 1914 (9 Adar 5674) in Baligrod, County of Lvov, in Poland. She was the youngest child in the family, with four older brothers and one sister.
At the end of 1914, when Sarah was only a year old, her father passed away, causing the family to move to Germany. Three of her older brothers, Morris, Samuel and Emanuel, immigrated to the United States, probably some time before World War II. Sarah Rachela Shoshana immigrated to Palestine on July 3, 1934 and her brother Joseph and his wife Ethel (Bremmer) followed her soon after. At first, Joseph and Ethel lived in Pardes Chana, then they moved to Haifa and later on, settled in Kiryat Hayim. Their sister Fania Neumann and her two sons, Jerrad and Alfred perished during the Holocaust.
During the early days of Sarah’s life in Palestine, she lived in Jerusalem, at the home of Dr. Robert Sigmund Simon and his wife Paula. The doctor was an orthopedist and physical therapist. Sarah served as the couple’s housekeeper.
During WWII, Sarah joined the British Army and was posted as a driver in the “Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service” (ATS). (The roots of this service were in the “WAAC-Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps” which began as a volunteer service during WWI, in 1917. The soldiers serving in “WAAC” did so as office workers, cooks, telephone operators and waitresses, until the corps was dissolved in 1921. Before WWII, the British Government decided to create a new corps for women that would be part of the “Territorial Service”, and the women serving there would receive two thirds of the salary that the men received. From 1941 on, women served not as volunteers but as full fledged soldiers.) Sarah served at a camp near Gaza, Dir Sunaid. It was the largest training camp in the Middle East. During Sarah’s service there, she rose to the rank of sergeant.
Sarah was well liked by her friends. She was very dedicated to her job although army life, as her family reported, did not appeal to her. On December 12, 1944, (4Tevet 5705), as Sarah was planning her return to civilian life, she was killed in an automobile accident in Palestine. She was laid to rest at the British Army Cemetery in Ramleh.
Sarah Rachela was memorialized in the “Letter to the Soldiers” published by the “Vaad Hapoel of the Histadrut”, “The Book of Yizkor” by the Jabotinsky Institute and in the “Yearbook of the Journalists”, published in 1945 (5706).
The details of Sarah Rachela Shoshana Blank’s life and her photograph are missing on the “Yizkor” site of the Defense Ministry.
The story of her life was researched and completed, including finding her photograph in 2015 by volunteers of “Giving a Face to the Fallen”.