His family moved to Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), where his father, Samuel Lichtenfeld, was a chief inspector on the local police force and a former circus acrobat; he grew up there.

He quickly decided that sport has little in common with real combat and began developing a system of techniques for practical self-defense in life-threatening situations.

'[11][12][13] In 1940, Lichtenfeld fled the rise of Nazism in Slovakia, heading for Palestine on the Aliyah Bet vessel, Pencho, which shipwrecked on the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea.

He reached Palestine in 1942 after serving with distinction in the British supervised Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion in North Africa.

[7] After he finished his active duty, Lichtenfeld modified Krav Maga to fit the needs of police forces and ordinary civilians.

[16] The method was formulated to suit everyone – man and woman, boy or girl — who might need it to survive an attack while sustaining minimal harm.