Felix Beatus

Felix Beatus was born in 1917 in Kalisz

Felix Beatus was born in 1917 in Kalisz, Poland, to an assimilated Jewish family. In the early 1930s the family moved to Częstochowa, where it made paper bags. When World War II began in 1939, he fled east with his wife and worked as a driver in Stryi.

In 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army as a truck driver and later drove tanks. After being wounded, he joined the Polish 1st Tank Brigade, took armor officer courses and helped liberate the Majdanek camp. He ended the war in May 1945 as a major and battalion commander.

After the war he became governor of Szczecin, where his unit expelled the German residents. There he helped the Mossad LeAliyah Bet move Holocaust survivors toward the Land of Israel. In May 1947 he immigrated after envoys of the Haganah called him to serve.

With Yitzhak Sadeh he founded the first armor school at the end of 1947. He commanded Battalion 82, which captured Lod Airport on 10 July 1948 during Operation Dani. On 9 November 1948 he led the capture of the Iraq Suwaydan fort.

He left the IDF together with Sadeh after the war and worked for many years as a driver for Egged. Later he managed the Egged Tours station at Lod Airport. He died in 1992 during a visit to Poland and was buried in Yarkon Cemetery.