Eliahu Itzkovitz was a Romanian Jew of Moldavian descent who during the Second World War, while a prisoner in a concentration camp witnessed the murder of his family at the hands of a Romanian prison guard named Stănescu. Itzkovitz vowed to avenge his family's murder at the hands of a fellow Romanian, but was unable to find the murderer after the war. After the war he subsequently emigrated to Israel where he served in the Israeli Defense Forces until he learned that Stănescu had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, this leading him to desert from the IDF and join the Foreign Legion. Itkowitz was able to track down and kill Stănescu in French Indochina. He was later court-martialed in Israel for desertion and sentenced to one year in prison.