The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger: Revised Edition

by Carolyn Gammon, Israel Unger

Overview

At the beginning of the Nazi period, 25,000 Jewish people lived in Tarnow, Poland. By the end of the Second World War, nine remained. Like Anne Frank, Israel Unger and his family hid for two years in an attic crawl space above the Dagnan flour mill in Tarnow. Their stove was the chimney that went up through the attic; their windows were cracks in the wall. Survival depended on the food the adults were able to forage outside at night. Against all odds, they emerged alive. Now, decades later, here is Unger’s “unwritten diary.”

At the end of the war, following a time as people sans pays, the Unger family immigrated to Canada. After discovering a love of chemistry, Israel Unger had a stellar academic career, married, and raised a family in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger is as much a Holocaust story as it is a story of a young immigrant making every possible use of the opportunities Canada had to offer.

This revised edition includes a reproduction of Dagnan’s List, a list of Jewish slave labourer similar Schindler’s List, made famous in the Steven Spielberg movie. The name of Israel Unger’s father appears on the list, in which Dagnan declares that Unger is an “essential worker”—a ruse that may have saved the father’s life. This recently discovered document proves that Israel Unger’s memory of this key part of the story was accurate. A new postscript details the importance of this startling document.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771120111
Publisher:	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication date:	07/22/2014
Series:	Life Writing , #48
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in New Brunswick, Carolyn Gammon moved to Berlin in 1992. Her poetry, prose, and essays have appeared in anthologies in North America and Great Britain, and in translation. She is co-author of the Holocaust memoir Johanna Krause, Twice Persecuted (WLU Press, 2007).

Israel Unger was born in 1938 in Tarnow, Poland, and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is Dean Emeritus of Science at the University of New Brunswick. Israel Unger was one of fifty Holocaust survivors to be honoured by the Government of Canada in 1998 in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was the educational advisor for Atlantic Canada for the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents for The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger by Carolyn Gammon and Israel Unger

Dedications

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Israel Unger

Part I: The Only Jews in Poland

Srulik is born in Tarnow

Wysiedlenia

My Father's Courage

Dagnam's Flour Mill

The Hideout

The Only Jews in Poland

Kissing a Soviet Soldier's Boot

Matzos from America

Part II: Sans Pays

The Kielce Pogrom and a Gash on the Head

Becoming ”Orphans”

Aix-les-Bains

Sans Pays in Paris

Charlie and Sydney in London

Back to Paris, Quartier Pére Lachaise

Visions of Canada: Mounties, Snow, and Sheepskin

Part III: Canadian Through and Through

An Airplane, a Stevedore, and His Plymouth: Arriving at Pier 21

Home à la Mordecai Richler

Ich hab dir gegebn lebn zwei mol—”I gave you life twice”

The Yeshiva and Bnei Akiva

Canada Through and Through

The Octet Rule

Collecting Butcher Bills

Kafkaesque Encounters

My Brother Charlie

Part IV: The Bubble Counter

Leaving Home: Montreal to Fredericton

The Bubble Counter

Photochemistry in Texas

Under the Chuppah in Minto, New Brunswick

The Young Professor—From Texas to Saint John

ALS—My Father's Death

Charlie's Troubles

A Mark for Canada

Sharon and Sheila

The Best Granny

Part V: Dean Unger

Dean Unger

Struggles with Charlie

My Mother and Her Backbone of Steel

Marlene

Making Up for Lost Time

Airplane Accident

Telling My Story

Part VI: “They Know My Name is Srulik!”

Return to Tarnow

A Modern Righteous Gentile: Meeting Adam Bartosz

Meeting Mr. Dagnan

Skorupa

Kalman Goldberg—Outside the Hideout

Rescue Children, Inc.

Ryglice and Dabrowa

State Archives and Registry Office

My Birth House

Matzevahs for my Family

“They know my name is Srulik!”

“How did the Holocaust affect you?”

Afterword: Writing The Unwritten Diary by Carolyn Gammon

Postscript

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"In a small town in Poland, nine Jews hid from the Nazis in an attic crawl space for two years. All of them survived. Israel Unger, professor and dean emeritus of the University of New Brunswick, was one of them. With the help of Carolyn Gammon, Unger has shared his story in the Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger. Unger says the idea to write this book was not his, it was Gammon's. ‘When she first suggested to me that we write a book, my answer to her was that there wasn't a book, that my memories were not very extensive because I was so young at the time,’ he says. Unger was five when they first hid in the attic, seven when they left that tiny space after Poland was liberated. ‘And I was 1 1/2 when the German war machine crashed into Poland,’ he notes. ‘But Carolyn then said, what happened afterwards is also interesting.’ Looking at himself as a representative of what happened to many survivors, he realized that there might be a book. ‘There were 350,000 Jews that survived Poland—10 per cent of the 3.5 million that were living there before the war—and I was one of those,’ says Unger. ‘It seemed to me, in telling the story, you could also tell in some ways the story of many other people.’... What [Unger] found particularly gratifying was that the external reviewer said his story wasn't just part of Holocaust history, it's part of Canadian history. The reviewer also said his story filled a gap. ‘To me, it was kind of a justification for the book, that somebody considers it a part of Canadian history,’ he says."

Fredericton Daily Gleaner - Lori Gallagher

"The book's final section sets it apart from many other memoirs, in detailing the extensive research undertaken by Unger and Gammon, greatly facilitated by the internet, to reconstruct the circumstances of his Holocaust childhood: the hiding place, the Polish citizens who helped the nine Jews, others who knew about their refuge but did not denounce them, and even the fates of the five others who hid with the Unger family. Correspondence and personal encounters with various helpful and unhelpful Polish authorities enliven this account. A high point is Unger's meeting with the mill owner's son, who had known about the hidden Jews, and the discovery of and visits with two women from the group, sisters living in Israel. Another strength of the book is its rich photographic documentation, again largely the result of careful research.... Gammon and Unger have produced a readable, unpretentious, straightforward book that will be of interest to those studying immigration and exile, Holocaust memoir, and Canadian university life. Closing the account, the reader is inclined to agree with Unger's assertion that ‘every survivor story ... is unique and extraordinary’ and to concur with his own self-assessment: ‘I have had a very good life.’"

Cecile Zorach

"This is like a detective story where we are also taken on the journey with the authors and become witnesses to the discovery of evidence that, in every detail, supports Israel's memories and stories. I have seldom been so moved that I literally stop everything else, including eating until I reach the end. There is a tension between the utter honesty and attention to detail of Israel's story, and the need to dig deeper and find out more emotionally. It makes this book powerful and indeed, empowering. This is storytelling / history / memoir / biography at its very best. The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger deserves an award for its content but also its methodology. It provides a useful blueprint for other writing–interviewing partnerships and shows how dedication to the cause can lead to an incredibly compelling book.... You cannot read this book fast. It is a slow read. It needs to be. Nor can you put it down. So, be prepared to find a safe haven, take plenty of time, and begin this journey. You will not emerge the same person as you began. This is one of those unique, life-changing books."

Asia Pacific Review - Cathie Koa Dunsford

"[The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger] is a powerful story of courage, survival, humility, and love—love of family, love of community, and love of peace, justice, and truth.... Unger and his collaborator, Carolyn Gammon, wrote this book clearly intending to tell the story of an extraordinary life. In the process, it became more than just a writing exercise for them. Like so many works motivated by passion and discovery and framed within the borders of historical and family narratives, this book became a journey of self-discovery and narrative renewal.... This book of memory is as finely written an account of a life as I have read."

Bugle-Observer (Woodstock, NB) - Richard Blaquiere