Meir Dagan, Israeli military officer and intelligence official, Died at 71

  Military

Aluf Meir Dagan was born on January 30, 1945, and died on March 17, 2016.

He was a former Israel Defense Forces officer and former Director of the Mossad.

He was born on a train between the Soviet Union and Poland during World War II to Polish Jewish parents who were fleeing Poland for the Soviet Union to escape the Holocaust.

Ber Erlich Sloshny, his maternal grandfather was killed by the Nazis.

Reportedly, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published two photos of Nazi soldiers standing next to a kneeling Sloshny shortly before they shot him.

While he served as the Director-General of the Mossad, Dagan kept one of the photographs hanging in his office.

Himself and his parents survived the Holocaust, and in 1950, the family made aliyah to Israel.

As their ship came closer to Israel, it encountered a storm, during which Meir stood on the stern, praying to reach the shore safely.

On arrival family originally lived in an immigrant camp in Lod before settling in Bat Yam, where Meir grew up and his parents ran a laundry business.

Meir Dagan was a vegetarian and an amateur painter, who studied painting and sculpture at Tel Aviv University.

Meir Dagan was married with three children.

Meir Dagan passed away at 71 yrs old.