At 101, legendary photographer and holocaust survivor Dan Hadani displays on a life t

Photographer Dan Hadani by no means obtained formal coaching in images. Still, considered one of his earliest photographs, capturing Prime Minister David Ben‑Gurion leaning over maps aboard the Israeli navy ship Eilat, immediately grew to become a part of historical past. “I was fortunate,” he says. “In 1951, while serving on the Eilat ship, Prime Minister Ben‑Gurion visited the naval headquarters at Stella Maris in Haifa. I happened to be in the right place, with my amateur camera and natural curiosity, and I captured the rare moment when Ben‑Gurion was briefed on the radar station’s operations.”

Hadani’s illustrious many years‑lengthy profession, he says, started merely as a technique to earn additional revenue. “When I served in the navy, I photographed soldiers for five pruta (Israeli currency at the time),” he remembers. “One of the first images I sold showed Haifa residents welcoming an ice cream cart.”

Now 101, Hadani’s life story mirrors the story of Israel. Born Aug. 22, 1924, in Lodz, Poland, he survived the Lodz ghetto and the Auschwitz death camp, where he endured Dr. Josef Mengele’s selections, was sent to forced labor, survived a death march and was the sole survivor of his extended family. He immigrated to Israel in 1948, enlisted in the navy, served more than 15 years and later joined the IDF spokesperson’s unit as a military press officer.

In 1964 he founded Israel Press Photo Agency (IPPA), which became a central documentary institution with millions of photos from 1965 to 2000, capturing key moments in Israeli history. The archive included work by about 200 photographers, including Hadani himself. In 2016 he donated the entire collection to the National Library.

“I always told photographers who worked with me, ‘There’s money on the floor; you just have to look for it and document it,’” he explains. “The archive I built and donated — 72,000 negatives are already online, with another 1.3 million scanned and given to the National Library — is perhaps the most important milestone in my life. This documentation will be preserved for generations.”

Last Thursday Hadani, a father of two sons and grandfather of four, received special recognition. The March of the Living organization in Israel and the ‎Shoa Survivors Rights Authority held an event in his honor at the National Library. Wearing the Medal of Revival from the Authority and escorted by his son Ron, granddaughter Yael and his caregiver, he struggled to contain his emotion. “I can’t believe I’m actually being honored in my lifetime for work spanning so many years,” he stated.

Waiting in the hall was a group of photographers who had worked with him at IPPA, including Yossi Aloni, Gideon Markowitz, Jim Hollander, Rina Castelnuovo and his weekly coffee circle colleagues, among them Arie Egozi.

Hadani began the pioneering company, which provided pictures and tales to 25 newspaper networks in Israel and overseas, at age 40 after leaving the navy. “My connection with Yedioth Ahronoth began after I arranged a visit aboard Eilat for then‑editor Dov Judkowsky and owner Noah Mozes. Soon after, the Savoy Hotel bombing happened. I photographed it and sent materials to Yedioth Ahronoth, and from there our work together became routine.”

At the tribute, Revital Yachin Krakowski, CEO of the March of the Living group in Israel, stated, “It’s important to remember the contribution of Holocaust survivors to the founding and development of the country, not just the suffering they endured.”

Ronit Rozin, common director of the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority, added: “Hadani’s vast collection tells the story of the country.” Colette Avital, chairperson of the Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel and CEO of the inspiration for the welfare of Holocaust survivors, concluded: “Dan Hadani, you aren’t only a maker of historical past, you’re a recorder of historical past.”

Recently Hadani additionally accomplished a private web site with Wix — dan‑hadani.com — chronicling his life’s historical past. Despite his superior age, he was actively concerned in constructing the positioning and adapting to new know-how, together with scanning 40,000 negatives — a venture that took 16 years.

Photographer Ziv Koren visited Hadani at his residence in Givatayim for a one‑on‑one dialog. Hadani pointed to a suitcase and requested him to open it. Inside have been a German “Garmoshka” digicam (which opens like an accordion), Rolleiflex cameras, and Leica and Pentax fashions. Koren, visibly moved, stated: “You know, I have a large collection of vintage cameras in my studio that are very dear to me.”

Hadani smiled and said, “You understand I was an amateur photographer. It was a hobby. I shot without even measuring the light. I never dreamed of becoming a photographer; it just happened. I fell in love with journalism.”

Yet in Hadani’s remarkable archive of more than two million images, there are almost no photos documenting the March of the Living in Poland. “I’m one of those who were ashamed to talk about surviving the Holocaust,” he says. “Native Israelis called me a ‘Muselmann’ because I was very skinny, and they called me other derogatory names, so I chose to suppress that chapter of my life and move on. I decided I would never go back to Poland!”

Koren, one of today’s leading documentary photographers, emphasized Hadani’s enormous contribution to Israeli press photography. “I listen to your story — a young man who lost his entire family and survived the unthinkable in Auschwitz — sitting in front of me today with a magnificent archive of the history of the Jewish people. It complements my work as a photographer and journalist documenting wars and trauma our country has endured, and whenever I can, I join the March of the Living to capture another piece of history from the last witnesses alive. It’s a privilege for me.”

In their intergenerational meeting, Koren emphasized Hadani’s impact on Israeli photography. “Today more than ever, we understand the immense value of authentic documentation in a world where everything can now be generated by AI,” Koren stated. “Dan’s groundbreaking imaginative and prescient manifested at two key moments: founding a pioneering photograph company that delivered photographs from Israel to the world earlier than the age of social media and digital images, and his important choice to donate his archive to the National Library — turning this treasure right into a nationwide asset accessible to all.”

Looking at him with his clear blue eyes, Hadani said in response: “It’s impossible to describe the difference between photography back then, which involved carrying heavy equipment, developing films in darkrooms, working with negatives and delivering pictures in envelopes to newspaper newsrooms, and today’s digital age, when everyone shoots with a smartphone. If I had to give advice to today’s photographers, frankly, I cannot. They won’t understand me or my photographic language. Everything has changed from end to end.”

At the top of the assembly, Koren devoted his guide October 7 War, a photographic documentary of a painful and turbulent interval, to Hadani. With a trembling voice Hadani thanked him: “On October 7 I pounded the desk and advised myself, ‘This is a Holocaust.’ As a Holocaust survivor who survived the worst dying camp, I really feel that at present I’m once more in exile.”