Baruch “Bobby” Cohen was born in Romania in 1927. He attended a vocational school when the German army’s invasion of Romania turned the country into the main garage for the Reich’s military vehicles. Baruch and his schoolmates were forced into hard labor, starvation, and little sleep. After the end of WW2, Cohen was engaged in Zionist activities in Romania. He joined a Zionist movement and helped found branches and community centers for Zionist seminars and the purchase of weapons for the future Jewish state. In 1947 he boarded "The Jewish State" ship to immigrate illegally to Israel, which was then under British Mandate control. Instead of being permitted entry, Cohen and the other passengers were expelled to Cyprus, where the British had built detention camps for the Jewish deportees. In 1948, after the British Mandate expired and the Cyprus camps were liberated, Cohen and his fellow prisoners sailed to Israel.
