Dov Landau: Holocaust Survivor, War Of Independence Vet, 16 Family Members Fighting In Swords Of Steel

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In some ways, 96-year-old Dov Landau encompasses in his own life the entire history of the Jewish people over the past century.

Dov was born in 1928 in the town of Brzesko, Poland just 50 kilometers east of Kraków and 25 km west of Tarnów. In September of 1939, the Nazis entered the town and burned down the synagogue opposite his home in the middle of the town square. The whole village cried in horror and disbelief.

Living in the Ghetto of Brzesko up until the age of 13, Dov was sent to the Bochnia Ghetto which was also a labor camp where he pressed straw for the German’s horses to eat. When the Ghetto was liquidated he moved with his father to another camp called Szebnie where he lived for another 3 months until the 4,000 people in the camp were taken to Aushwitz-Birkenau. Once in Aushwitz, the Nazis made a selection of who would be able to work and who would go to the crematorium.

After a month and a half, Dov together with his father went to work in the Jaslo-Rzeszow coal mines. However, after six months of hard labor his father fell ill, went to the hospital and was then sent to his death at the crematoriums in Aushwitz, never to return. On January 17, 1945, Dov began the “Death March” as the allied troops approached the concentration camp.

After making it through the March, the Nazis moved the survivors to move to the Buchenwald camp where he took part in his second “Death March” on April 7, 1945. Just a few days later after surviving the “Death March” yet again, the American troops liberated Buchenwald where he remained for a number of months until moving to the land of Israel.

Once in Israel, Dov completed high school, attended Yeshiva and fought in Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, where 242 of his comrades fell, including his future wife’s brother Rafael Yaakovson. On May 15, 1948 when the State of Israel was declared, he was captured and sent to a Jordanian prison where he remained for 11 months until he was freed.

“I even heard Ben Gurion announce the establishment of the state, they took us into captivity the same day,” Dov recalls.

Dov, the sole survivor of his family, established his own family, many of whom served in the IDF themselves. Currently Dov has 16 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and in-laws who are involved in Swords of Steel. He told Yediot Aharonot that “I am proud of all of these young soldiers who are fighting Hamas and the Arab mobs who want to attack us and hurt us.” Dov said these words to a young war widow at the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl, who was moved by his story and by his words of encouragement.

Dov has a clear opinion on the current war, honed by his harsh life experiences. “I went through five years of the Holocaust, and what I felt is unfathomable. We need to eliminate evil so that we can live here freely in our state without fear, of Hamas terrorists hiding in Rafah or elsewhere. On the 7th of October there were wild animals, cannibals, wicked people, it was an unexpected attack. Nobody even knew what was happening.

“We need to crush them totally, otherwise we will live for many more years in fear that it will occur again. They are holding hostages and we can’t make any deals with them. They only want to stop the war and to release the terrorists we are holding so that they can control the state of Israel from Gaza. We cannot  let this happen.”