World War II veteran Dominick Daniel Santagata will turn 100 on August 23, and the Woodhaven, Queens, native will be showered with birthday cards from at least 100 grateful New Yorkers and their friends and family around the globe.
It’s all thanks to a history-loving Westchester millennial who made it her mission to thank the war hero for his service — and share his remarkable story with friends.
“I always had a deep appreciation for veterans. Whenever I see a veteran I go out of my way to thank them,” Dafina Celaj, 32, who lives in Millwood, New York, told The Post.
“I am always so appreciative of the people who sacrificed for our freedom – especially for the World War II generation,” she added.
Celaj, who works in event planning, met Santagata by chance in the parking lot of a Key Food grocery store in Pleasantville, New York, in 2021.
“She came up to me and she said, ‘I noticed your license plate said 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 US Army hat at the time, told The Post. “I told her, ‘Thank you for remembering. A lot of people have forgotten about it.'”
The duo kept in touch, through phone calls and letters, over the years. When Celaj learned Santagata was turning 100 this month, she put a call out to friends on social media, encouraging them to mail Santagata a birthday card to a P.O. Box she opened specifically for the occasion.
“To show my appreciation for his service to our country I would like to try and get Dan 100 birthday cards for his 100th birthday,” she posted on Instagram last Thursday.
Celaj has since collected more than 60 cards from New Yorkers and people as far away as Ireland, Mexico and Switzerland.
She expects to reach 100 cards before next Friday and notes that many have been touched to learn about Santagata’s story.
“He’s one of the last eyewitnesses to the biggest war in human history,” she said. “To be able to talk to someone from that time who saw it with their own two eyes is incredible.”
Celaj majored in history at Pace University in Westchester, but her appreciation for Santagata — and what he fought for — goes beyond the academic.
“I come from a family of immigrants,” said Celaj, whose father fled communist Albania to the US in search of a better life.
Santagata was 17 when he enlisted in the army in 1942. The son of Italian immigrants who moved to America in the 1920s, he was sent to Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, for three weeks of processing before going to Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, to train as a combat engineer.
“It was tough,” Santagata, who now lives in Stamford, Connecticut, recalled. “But I did it and then went to Camp Shanks in New York for a week’s leave before we shipped out to Europe for the war. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t see my family for more than two years.”
Santagata left New York Harbor on the Queen Elizabeth with thousands of fellow soldiers for Newcastle, England in 1943. There, he cleared mines from beaches before being stationed in Northern Ireland.
He handled explosives in the Army’s 5th Infantry Division, specializing in dismantling land mines, laying minefields and building barbed-wire fences and bridges.
“I handled all kinds of explosives – the only one I didn’t handle too much was dynamite, that was very dangerous,” he told The Post.
Santagata’s division embarked on five campaigns — in Normandy, northern France, the Rhineland, the Ardennes in the Battle of the Bulge and Central Europe under General George Patton. Through it all, his division crossed a staggering 26 rivers.
One of Santagata’s core memories was when his division liberated a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1945.
“I would never go near the ovens. I saw a prisoner and gave him a K-ration [of emergency food]. He started crying. I grabbed civilian clothes and gave them to him,” he recalled.
After the war, he worked in construction for commercial buildings in New York and Connecticut. He and his late wife, Adrienne, raised two kids together.
Today, Santagata is a proud grandfather to seven and great-grandfather to three.
He plans to celebrate his birthday over ice cream cake with family and Celaj, who will read him the heartfelt thank you’s that she’s collected.
Turning 100 feels surreal, Santagata said.
“I never thought I’d make it. I figured to 75, maybe,” he said. “I feel so lucky.”
Those who would like to wish the veteran a Happy 100th Birthday can mail cards to: Dan Santagata; P.O. Box 33; Pleasantville, NY 10570.
