Born in 1924 in Kaunas, Lithuania, he became a member of “HaMaapilim” (“Daredevils ascending to Zion”) at an early age. During WWII he was sent to Dachau from the ghetto in Kaunas. In 1947 he was arrested by the MGB in Berlin on the charge of subversive Zionist activity and connections with the Jewish Agency (HaSokhnut HaYehudit), whose goal was the encouragement and financing help in smuggling Jews to Eretz Israel. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in the Gulag. Released in 1955, after 8.5 years of imprisonment, he got permission to go to Israel in 1961.
