A Survivor's Duty

The Holocaust and the birth and growth of Israel are strikingly different Jewish historical events. Yet they are related, just like the author, Gabriel Laufer and his father. With only a few hints in hand, Laufer researched the details of his father’s Holocaust survival in the Hungarian forced labor battalions near Stalingrad, as a slave building German bunkers for weapon factories, and later, his escape from Stalinist Hungary. In this book, Laufer shares the gripping stories of his father’s experiences juxtaposed with his own as an Israeli Defense Force officer in the Six Days War and the three wars that followed. Laufer leads the reader through his family’s personal history and its place in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

Gaby Laufer, Hungarian born and Israeli native, is a retired University of Virginia Engineering professor. Deploying his scientific research skills to discover unknown details of his father’s Holocaust survival and juxtaposing them with accounts of his own participation in Israeli wars, he created a unique parallel father-and-son narrative.