The son of Zippora-Leah (Feiga) and Chaim-Yehuda. He was born on December 13, 1927, in the town of Zdenovo in the Munkács district of Czechoslovakia. A brother to six: Eliezer (Lazer), Naftali, David-Zvi, Chaya-Bina, Rivka and Miriam (Monsey). Martin’s Hebrew name was Michael-Yechiel. He studied in the “cheder” in the town where he grew up. As a boy and boy he participated in sports activities such as football and volleyball, but he also enjoyed reading. He was active in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. His parents made a living selling soda water and ran a beer marketing agency. Thirty-five Jewish families lived in their hometown. With the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1938, the region moved to Hungary. On March 19, 1944, Nazi Germany took control of Hungary, and then the Jews began to be concentrated in the ghettos and sent to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. The Jews of the Zhdanova community were deported in mid-April 1944, immediately after the Passover holiday. Martin was sent to Auschwitz and was also in the Mauthausen camp where he worked as a tailor during the war. During World War II, his brother David-Zvi (in Mauthausen) and the sisters Rivka and Miriam (in Auschwitz) perished. Martin survived, along with his brother Lazer, Naftali and Chaya Binah (Blonka). After the liberation, Martin returned to his home town, which was returned to Czechoslovakia, and together with most of the Jews he wandered to the Sudetenland. Martin joined the “Hanoar Hatzioni” organization and, under his influence, volunteered for the Czech Brigade, which was designated for military training in the course of immigration to Israel. Martin was a quiet and humble fellow, and according to his friend, Yitzhak Greenwald, “went in line.” The “Czech Brigade” was established in July 1948 and included some 1,500 Jewish volunteers who had trained in the Czech Republic in preparation for immigration and joining the IDF The commanders of the course were comprised of Czech army commanders and Israeli instructors who were members of the Haganah. They were all graduates of various military courses under the command of Haim Guri (later a well-known poet) The IDF paratroopers course began in Prague on July 15 in the Str? Pod Ralskem Czech Army camp. The facility was built by the German paratroopers and used to defeat them. The training took place in complete secrecy in Communist Czechoslovakia. The soldiers were forbidden to speak Hebrew, English or Hungarian, so that they would not stand out in front of the locals. They wore the mottled uniforms of the Czechoslovakian paratroopers, wearing red commando shoes and scarlet-colored berets. The commanders were instructed by heart. The training was carried out without paperwork, quickly and practically. The training included Krav Maga, handling of explosives, demolition, shooting, target capture, parachuting and parachuting jumps. Haim Guri commanded the paratroopers and was Martin’s Israeli commander. In his renewed book “Until Dawn,” he wrote: “The image of a young man of ours, Martin Davidowitz of Carpathos, who was killed by the bullet of one of the Czech instructors, does not leave me. He was secretly buried in the Jewish cemetery in Prague. These terrible disasters are called ‘training accidents.’ “One of the course’s soldiers, Yitzhak Greenwald, described the events of the night of August 18, 1948, about three weeks after the beginning of the course:” On that day there were two exercises, day training and night training. The first workout, on the day, passed successfully; In the night training, where the subject of the exercise was “Attack on a Target and Preparing for an Explosion”, the platoon split into two forces: Force A, Force B, Defending. From his point of view, Martin Davidovitz was first or second in the attacking force, and his job was to neutralize the sentry (a member of the trained group, a Czech lieutenant, a career soldier). Since Martin Davidovitch knew Czech, he was determined to take over the sentry. While the whole group was lying in the darkness, Martin approached the Czech officer and put his arms around him. In response, the officer pulled outHe put his pistol on the forehead of Martin Davidovitz and fired one bullet … and killed him there. “In his defense, Yitzhak Grinwald later claimed that he thought the pistol was not loaded, and the officer was suspended for twenty-four hours. 13 August 1948. He was brought to rest the next day in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, leaving two brothers and a sister, and under his influence, his brother Naftali joined the “Brigade” Odyssey-Obscova, where he received the announcement of his brother’s death and participated in his funeral, and Martin’s brothers immigrated to Israel and lived in the Haifa area since 1949. They moved to the United States from 1955 to 1954. Naftali changed his name to Knight Davis, who changed his surname to Davis, and the brothers and sister Blunka Friedman all lived in the United States. To the Israel Defense Forces, but he fell in a paratrooper training exercise as part of an IDF course in Czechoslovakia and explicitly mentioned his name in an official report of the “Parachuting Instructor Team” to the IDF General Staff. And has been recognized as an IDF soldier since 2001. According to the testimony of Yitzhak Greenwald, a member of a course and an activist in the organization Chenim, Martin was the first cavalry of the IDF paratroopers, although he did not get to Israel. His name is commemorated in the Paratroopers Memorial near Tel Nof Air Force Base, and the Association for the Heritage of the Paratroopers produced a film in his memory.
