Remains of IDF’s first fallen paratrooper returned to Israel

The remains of the IDF’s first fallen paratrooper, Private Martin Davidowicz were transferred from the Czech Republic to Israel on Wednesday, the IDF spokesperson unit reported. The coffin was flown in an air force plane and escorted by a joint delegation of the Defense Ministry’s Commemoration and Heritage Families department and the IDF.

The plane landed in Prague earlier in the day, and a ceremony was held by IDF Paratroopers to transfer the coffin into it. Leading the ceremony were the department’s deputy director-general and head Ariyeh Mu’alem and the delegation’s military commander Col.-Capt. Itay Brinn.

Also participating in the ceremony were soldiers and commanders from the Paratroopers’ Vipers Battalion, the IDF’s cantor Lt.-Col. Shai Avramson and others. At the end of the ceremony, the soldiers carried the coffin to the plane to be flown back to Israel.

A burial ceremony will take place on Thursday afternoon at the military cemetery in Har Herzl. It will be led by Deputy Defense Minister Alon Schuster and head of the Manpower Directorate Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor. The delegation members will also take part as well as the Paratroopers commander Col.-Capt. Yoav Bronner and Davidowicz’s family.

“The ceremony we held on the ramp of an Israel Air Force plane in the Czech Republic shows our value and dedication as a people to the memory of Israel’s fallen soldiers,” Mu’alem said. “Seeing the paratroopers with their red berets carrying the coffin is an emotional moment that affords great respect for the journey to Davidowicz’s new burial in the Har Herzl Military Cemetery.”

“With great emotion I stand across from Martin Davidowicz’s coffin today and say thanks for the major privilege that I have to command the operation to bring his remains to Israel for burial,” said Brinn.

“It’s a privilege that connects me to our people’s magnificent past, our country’s present and our future as human beings. The more I learned about your personality, the difficulties you faced, the decisions you made and the strength and faith you showed at your young age, [this] turns you into an inspiration for me,” he said.

“The soldiers of the Paratroopers Division, the one Davidowicz strove to reach, have come to carry his coffin in an air force flight.”

Martin Davidowicz was born in 1927 in Czechoslovakia. At age 16, he was sent to Auschwitz where he remained until the end of the Holocaust. Having survived the Holocaust, Davidowicz joined the Czech Brigade. 

During the War of Independence in 1948, Czechoslovakia provided much help to the IDF, and the army’s first paratroopers training course was opened in an abandoned base in the Central European country.

In the third week of the course, Davidowicz was shot at point blank during an exercise by a Czech officer who claimed that he thought the gun was empty. The next day he was secretly buried in a Jewish Czech cemetery without a military ceremony. In 2001, he was formally recognized as the first fallen soldier of the IDF Paratroopers.