ATHLETICS

He was one of the best Polish athletes of the thirties participating at the Olympic Games in 1936 and at the Europeans of 1938. He was considered an idol by his fellow citizens, but it turned out to be an awkward element, persecuted for his being Jewish. He was took part to the resistance, but he was arrested and taken to Auschwitz, where he was assassinated in 1943.

He is of Jewish origin and lives in Yugoslavia at the moment when it suffers the invasion of the Germans. Two weeks after the invasion, his father who is in active service in the Yugoslavian army, joins the family in Belgrade and organizes the flight to Hungary. Shaul Ladany is arrested with his parents and two sisters in Budapest and subsequenlty deported with them to Bergem Belsen. That terrible period remained impressed in his memory. Shaul Ladany represented Israel also in the sport field and was 28 times national champion in foot race, he partecipated in the 1968 Olympics. The morning of September 5th 1972 he manages to escape the Palestinian command belonging to "Black September" that used to break into the apartaments of the Israeli team seizing the athlets. Today Shaul Ladany lives in Be'er Sheba with his wife, daughter and three grandchildren, he is professor emeritus at the Ben Guran University of Negen, he continues to practice foot race and every birthday he covers as many kilometers as his age.