Given name: David Family name: Gilbert Goetzel

In Paris he met his wife-Sophie.
He and Sophie left Germany in 1935 to escape anti-Semitism and the Nazis. They moved to Warsaw, where they were married. Once there, they planned to move to a safer country, one further away from the Nazi threat. But their daughter Micki was born in 1937 and financial constraints forced them to delay their plans.
Two years later the war began and David vowed to bring his loved ones through the danger. He guided his wife and two-year-old daughter through the siege of Warsaw. He was eventually arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for 8 months.
He left the ghetto in 1943 and went into hiding in the Aryan section of the city (first in a friend's apartment, than in Otwock). He was hiding separately from his family.
In July 1943 he took his family to the Hotel Polski. They were transported to a concentration camp - Bergen-Belsen. In April 1945 came the release and he travelled with his family to France.
In June 1945 he arrived with his family in Palestine.
On the advice of Sophie's doctors, he and Sophie divorced in 1946. After a year David met Liesel Hirsch, a German-born Jew. They married and a year later their son Raphael was born.
David decided to move his family to the United States in 1953. In 1955 his daughter Debbie was born. David opened his own business importing paintbrush handles. Debbie died in 1979 of dysautonomia, a Jewish genetic disorder. David sold his business in 1983 and retired. He engaged in public speaking about the wartime experiences.
Liesel and David celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1998. They decided to move closer to their son and granddaughters.
Every year, up until Sophie's death, Liesel and David travelled to Israel to visit her.

In the source Pamiętniki Żydów; sygn. 302/231; w Archiwum ŻIH; title: Der Krieg von innen [The war from the inside] she appears as David Leviathan.