Kibbutz Netzer Sereni was founded in 1948 by Holocaust survivors liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp, who had established themselves in 1945 as "Kibbutz Buchenwald", an agricultural collective designed to prepare Jews for life in Palestine, the first such Hakhshara group established in Germany after the war.[2][3][4][5] The kibbutz was established on the land of the depopulatedPalestinian village of Bir Salim.[6][7] The name was changed later to Netzer by the Buchenwald members. The kibbutz was named Netzer Sereni after Enzo Sereni, a JewishItalian intellectual, Zionist leader and Jewish Brigade officer. Sereni was one of the founders of Givat Brenner. He was parachuted into Nazi-occupied Italy in World War II, only to be immediately captured by the Germans and executed in Dachau concentration camp;[8] in Hebrew netzer means sprout, shoot or branch.
Between 1948 and 1951 antagonism between the Mapam and Mapai parties led to a split within the kibbutz movement,[9][10] and in 1952 120 Mapai members of kibbutz Givat Brenner broke away for ideological reasons and moved to Netzer Sereni.[8]
In popular culture
The 2023 Israeli musical film Victory focuses on two fictional couples from Netzer Sereni.[11]
