World War II veteran Dominick Daniel Santagata turns 100 on August 23, and the Woodhaven, Queens, native is being inundated with birthday cards from at least 100 grateful New Yorkers and their friends and family from around the world.
It’s all thanks to a history-loving millennial from Westchester who made it her mission to thank the war hero for his service – and share his remarkable story with friends.
“I’ve always had a deep appreciation for veterans. Whenever I see a veteran, I thank them,” Dafina Celaj, 32, who lives in Millwood, New York, told The Post.
“I am always so grateful to the people who sacrificed for our freedom – especially the World War II generation,” she added.
Celaj, who works in event planning, met Santagata by chance in 2021 in the parking lot of a Key Food grocery store in Pleasantville, New York.
“She came up to me and said, ‘I noticed your license plate says veteran.’ I said, ‘I’m a World War II veteran.’ She said, ‘I’ve always wanted to meet one.’ She was a wonderful person,” Santagata, who was wearing a U.S. Army cap at the time, told the Post. “I told her, ‘Thank you for remembering that. A lot of people have forgotten.'”
The duo stayed in touch through phone calls and letters over the years. When Celaj learned that Santagata would turn 100 this month, she put out a call to her friends on social media to send Santagata a birthday card to a post office box she opened especially for the occasion.
“To show my appreciation for his service to our country, I would like to try to get Dan cards for his 100th birthday,” she posted on Instagram last Thursday.
Since then, Celaj has collected more than 60 cards from New Yorkers and people as far away as Ireland, Mexico and Switzerland.
She expects to reach 100 cards by next Friday and notes that many were touched when they learned about Santagata’s story.
“He is one of the last eyewitnesses to the greatest war in human history,” she said. “To be able to speak to someone from that time who saw it with his own eyes is incredible.”
Celaj studied history at Pace University in Westchester, but her appreciation for Santagata – and what he fought for – goes beyond academics.
“I come from an immigrant family,” said Celaj, whose father fled communist Albania to the United States in search of a better life.
Santagata was 17 when he joined the Army in 1942. The son of Italian immigrants who came to America in the 1920s, he was sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for three weeks of pre-training before going to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to train as a pioneer engineer.
“It was tough,” recalls Santagata, who now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. “But I made it through and then went to Camp Shanks in New York for a week before we left for the war in Europe. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t see my family for over two years.”
In 1943, Santagata left New York Harbor with thousands of his comrades aboard the Queen Elizabeth and went to Newcastle, England, where he cleared mines from beaches before being stationed in Northern Ireland.
He worked with explosives in the Army’s 5th Infantry Division and specialized in defusing landmines, laying minefields, and building barbed wire fences and bridges.
“I handled all kinds of explosives – the only one I didn’t handle that much was dynamite, which was very dangerous,” he told the Post.
Santagata’s division took part in five campaigns – in Normandy, in the north of France, in the Rhineland, in the Ardennes in the Battle of the Bulge and in Central Europe under General George Patton. His division crossed an incredible 26 rivers.
One of Santagata’s defining memories is the liberation of a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia by his division in 1945.
“I would never go near the ovens. I saw a prisoner and gave him a K-ration (emergency food). He started crying. I took civilian clothes and gave them to him,” he recalled.
After the war, he worked in commercial construction in New York and Connecticut. He and his late wife, Adrienne, raised two children.
Today, Santagata is the proud grandfather of seven children and great-grandfather of three grandchildren.
He plans to celebrate his birthday with an ice cream cake surrounded by his family and with Celaj, who will read him the heartfelt messages of thanks she has collected.
Turning 100 feels unreal, Santagata said.
“I never thought I would make it. I thought maybe until 75,” he said. “I feel so lucky.”
Anyone wishing to congratulate the veteran on his 100th birthday can send cards to the following address: Dan Santagata; PO Box 33; Pleasantville, NY 10570.
