Israeli soldiers stand next to graves of fallen soldiers during a ceremony at a military cemetery in Tel Aviv, April 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters/ Corinna Kern.

i24 News – The body of Martin Davidovich, the first Israeli army paratrooper to fall in action, will be buried in Israel next week, 73 years after his death in a training accident in Czechoslovakia, The Times of Israel reported.

A delegation from Israel’s Defense Ministry and Israel’s military will travel to Prague on Sunday to recover his remains.

Martin Davidovich was born in 1927 in Częstochowa in Czechoslovakia. He died at the age of 21.

He was notably active in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, until World War II when he was sent to Auschwitz in April 1944 and then to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Many of his family were killed during the Holocaust.

After the war ended, Davidovich returned to Czechoslovakia and joined the Czech Brigade, a military unit created for the purpose of training Israel’s future soldiers.

Although Davidovich did not officially serve in Israel’s military, he took a course and was mentioned in a report submitted to Israel’s authorities at the time, by the team of skydiving instructors.

In 2001, Israel’s military decided to officially recognize him as a “fallen soldier.”