Only now, having reached the age of 80, is Tom Segev ready to admit that he was brought up on a lie. In recent years, the longtime historian and journalist who published numerous books and articles about the lives of others, has reexamined his own biography and discovered a few intriguing details. Ever since his father was killed, during the War of Independence, Segev believed that he was the son of one of the fallen in Israel's wars – Pvt. Heinz Schwerin, who was "struck by a murderers' bullet while on guard duty" in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood. That's the text that appears on the Defense Ministry's Izkor commemoration site.