Khaitov (Heitov) Israel Khaimovich (1911 — exact date and place of birth unknown; whether still alive unknown) — participant in the underground Communist movement (associated with Svarinsky, O.G. Arbit, and Sh. Goldshteyn), political prisoner, and ghetto inmate.
From 1924 to 1928 Israel Khaitov worked as a tailor’s apprentice in the town of Viļāni.
In 1928 he moved to Riga, where until 1931 he worked as a hired tailor. During this period he became acquainted with Communist youth circles and began participating in underground political activities: distributing leaflets and taking part in meetings and demonstrations.
In 1931 he returned to Viļāni and established contact with an illegal Komsomol organization. He traveled to Varakļāni for clandestine meetings and to obtain illegal literature.
While transporting such literature, he was arrested on 12 July 1931 at Varakļāni railway station.
He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but because of his minority status the sentence was reduced to two years.
After completing his sentence in 1933, he worked again as a tailor in Riga and continued his political activities.
In 1941 he was accepted as a candidate member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
At the beginning of the Nazi invasion he evacuated, but was later encircled and eventually returned to Riga under guard transport, where he was imprisoned in the Riga Ghetto.
In June 1943 he escaped and remained in hiding in a basement until October 1944.
From 1944 to 1952 he worked as a tailor in the “Voentorg” industrial combine and the “Taupība” artel.
From 1952 until September 1967 he worked as a tailor in the production association “Siluets.”
He later became a personal pensioner of republican significance. In 1946 he registered a marriage with Sterna Khaitova (née Gurevich, formerly Lisnyanskaya) (1915).
In the early 1980s, the family planned to emigrate to Israel to join Khaitov’s sister, Elizabet Kron (née Khaitova) (1906), who had moved to what is now the territory of Israel in 1935.
During the war years in the Vilnius Ghetto, Khaitov’s mother, Mery Khaitova (née Toibel) (1880–1940), and his brother, Lazar Khaitov (1900–1940), perished.