David (Dugo) Leitner was born in 1930 in the city of Nyíregyháza in Hungary, to an orthodox Jewish family. On March 19, 1944, the Germans entered Hungary and the day after Passover, all the Jews of the city were sent to the ghetto. After six weeks they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon their arrival at the camp, the family was separated. Dugo remained in Birkenau with about 4,000 other children. On January 18, 1945, he was forced to go on a death march to Mauthausen and from there to Gunskirchen. He was liberated there in May 1945. Dugo immigrated to Israel in 1949 and was immediately drafted into the IDF. He is one of the founders of Moshav Nir Galim where he lives to this day. Dugo married Sarah and they have two daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Every January 18, the date he was sent on the death march, Dugo eats falafel as a tribute to his survival. In 2016 the Testimony House in Nir Galim, initiated "Operation Dugo". As part of this, people from Israel and across the world eat falafel on January 18 and take a photograph with a sign that says "Operation Dugo - Am Yisrael Chai (The People of Israel Live)".
