Shaul Ladany, in his time, has been a concentration camp prisoner, record-breaking athlete, patriot, professor and chairman of the Ben Gurion University entrepreneurial center.

In his book, The King of the Road, he tells a remarkable and enthralling story about his life, from growing up in Belgrade at the time of the German invasion of 1941, to their escape to Hungary, being moved to a Jewish ghetto and from there on to the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Ladany tells this early part of his story with a mixture of humility and sadness.

Following the war Ladany and...