He survived Bergen-Belsen and the 1972 Munich Olympics and still competes
Prof. Shaul Ladany is both a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in which he was an inmate for six months and of the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in which he participated as a 50 kilometer race walker. This week marks the 47th anniversary of the attack.
BGU Prof. (Emer.) Shaul Ladany (Photo Credit: Dani Machlis/BGU)
A new exhibit documenting Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Prof. (Emer.) Shaul Ladany’s remarkable life will open on Thursday at 6 P.M. in the Forum of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in Lohheide, German
The exhibit is entitled “Life lines. Persecution and survival as reflected in the Shaul Ladany collection.”
Prof. Ladany has original documents related both to the persection by the Nazis and to the 1972 Olympic attack. These documents are being publicly presented for the first time.
He was deported from Hungary to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with his family in 1944 at the age of eight. He was one of the few Jewish prisoners who were saved through negotiations conducted by Hungarian and Swiss Jewish organisations with the SS and were able to travel to Switzerland in December 1944.
Ladany was a chaired professor of industrial engineering at BGU and served as chairman of the Department of Industrial Engineering before his retirement. He was awarded the Life Achievement Award in Industrial Engineering by the Israeli institutions that have industrial engineeering programs.
As an athlete, he set the 50 mile walk world record, which is still unbroken. In 1972, he won the 100 kilometer walk World Championship, was awarded the Baron Pierre de Coubertin medal by the International Olympic Committee for his sports achievements and is included in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
He continues to race walk to this day.
