Tombstone fragment recovered from a destroyed Jewish cemetery by a Holocaust survivor

Tombstone fragment recovered from a destroyed Jewish cemetery by a Holocaust survivor 

Tombstone fragment recovered from a destroyed Jewish cemetery by a Holocaust survivor 

overall: Height: 6.375 inches (16.192 cm) | Width: 6.875 inches (17.463 cm) | Depth: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) 

Tombstone fragment with engraved Hebrew text recovered long after the war by William (formerly Wolf) Ungar from the Jewish cemetery in Rimaliv, Tarnopol District, Ukraine, formerly eastern Poland. Wolf was mobilized into the Polish Army when Germany invaded in September 1939. He was wounded, captured, released, and then returned to Lwow (Lviv, Ukraine), now under Soviet control. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Lwow. Wolf was made to continue teaching at the technical school because the Germans needed Aryan youth trained to work in defense plants. In 1942, the Germans began to deport the Jewish residents. Wolf went into hiding, assisted by a Catholic student who gave Wolf his identity documents. In 1943, Wolf was denounced by the Jewish capo of a forced labor brigade and sent to Janowska concentration camp. He escaped and returned to his old apartment building where the superintendent let him hide in a basement crawl space. The city was liberated by the Soviet Army in spring 1944. William's entire extended family, including his wife and son, were killing during the war. When the war ended in May 1945, he left for Berlin and, in May 1946, went to the United States.