1949 Independence Day parade in Israel; family visit to the zoo

Menachem Shapiro was born in the DP camp Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy on June 21, 1946 to Hannah Buz (b. 1912) and Moshe Shapiro (b.1906) both from Shavli, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire.) Hannah and Moshe and had one daughter, Rivka, born in 1938. Moshe worked at a wood processing plant. Hannah and Moshe were sent to the Shavli ghetto in July 1941; Riva was sent to Auschwitz in November 1943 during the children's roundup; she died there. Moshe was sent to Dachau or a subcamp of Dachau and oversaw the building of roads for the SS. After liberation, Moshe traveled via Greece to Italy in a jeep with a friend from the Beitar youth movement, Dov Similansky. In Italy they met other family members who survived. Moshe, Hannah, and Menachem legally emigrated to Palestine in February 1948. They spent the next two years living with their father’s sister who had immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s. Moshe Shapiro probably acquired his film and still picture camera on the black market in Italy.