Dan Elkayam was a young French engineer from Le Bourget, in Seine-Saint-Denis, today almost devoid of Jews. On the first night of Hanukkah, like many young Jews far from home, he went to forge a bond with his people during the lighting of the Hanukkah menorah. As bullets began to fly, Dan rushed to shield a little girl with his own body and died under the terrorists’ gunfire.
Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman was killed while protecting his wife Larisa. Both Alex and Larisa survived the Holocaust as children: Alex had to endure “terrible conditions” in Siberia. Years of malnutrition and cramped conditions left Kleytman partially disabled.
