Gidon Lev
Gidon Lev (born 1935) is a Czechoslovakian-born Israeli dairy farmer and Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin between the ages of 6 to 10. Of the 15,000 children imprisoned in or transported through the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is one of the 92 children estimated to have survived. Early life. Lev was born in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, in 1935. Both of his parents came from secular Jewish families who had lived for many generations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His family fled to Prague when Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland in  1938. In 1941, Lev and his family were transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, a Nazi ghetto in Terezín, Czechoslovakia. Theresienstadt concentration camp. Lev was six years old when he was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp with his family in 1941. Twenty-six of Lev's family members died in the Holocaust, including his father, who died while being transported from Auschwitz to Buchenwald. Lev was 10 years old when the Red Army liberated the concentration camp in May 1945. Of the 15,000 children imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, Lev was among the 1% to have survived. Later  life. After their release from the concentration camp and the end of the World War II, Lev and his mother immigrated first to the United States and then to Canada in 1949. Ten years later, in 1959, Lev arrived in Israel and took up communal farming in the Kibbutz Hazorea in the Jezreel Valley. Lev served in the Israeli Defense Force during the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition in 1967. TikTok career. Lev opened a TikTok account in July 2021 and has published videos primarily aimed at Holocaust education. He has received media coverage for speaking out  against Holocaust denial and antisemitism. In 2021, Lev released a TikTok video criticizing and demanding an apology from American podcaster Joe Rogan for drawing parallels between the Holocaust and mandatory proof-of-vaccination against COVID-19. Published works. "The True Adventures of Gidon Lev: Rascal. Holocaust Survivor. Optimist". Julie Gray, June 30, 2020. ISBN Private life. Lev was married twice and has six children, 15 grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. He was married to his second wife for forty years, until she died of cancer in 2012.