Destined to Live [Hardcover]

William Ungar (Author), David Chanoff (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761818065 | ISBN-13: 978-0761818069 | Publication Date: November 8, 2000

William Ungar's biography Destined to Live is a perilous yet triumphant account of a young Polish soldier who suffered tremendous personal losses during the Holocaust. Despite losing several of his loved ones, Ungar did not succumb to anguish and despair. His survival depended on his ability to be alert and courageous, but his atypical facial characteristics helped tremendously to conceal his Jewish identity. Ungar lost not only his entire family but his wife and son, under the German occupation. His faith in divine providence sustained him until he could arrive in America on May 20, 1946. Here, he renewed his life, remarried, raised a happy family, and started a very successful business.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William Ungar is one of the founders of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., as well as the Museum of Jewish Heritage of the City of New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 362 pages
• Publisher: University Press of America, Lanham (MD), New York (November 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761818065
• ISBN-13: 978-0761818069
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,456,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Prewar Jewish Life, the 1939 Polish Defensive War, and the Lwow (Lviv, Lvov) Ghetto, February 21, 2008

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Destined to Live (Hardcover)

My review focuses on matters undeveloped by the other reviews.

Ungar's childhood in Krasne (near the Zbrucz River) repudiates the notion of anti-Semitism (and Christian-clergy hostility) being the constant companion of Polish Jews: "Both Father Hankiewicz and Father Leszczynski mainly preached the loving kindness of God. Because of the priests' behavior, the peasants didn't bear a grudge against Jews...The result was that I had the unbelievable good luck of growing up without either hatred or fear. My playmates were Polish and Ukrainian children and no one ever insulted me or tried to beat me up...Of course, they knew I was Jewish...But they considered me one of theirs." (pp. 66-67).

At least some of the sporadic anti-Semitism which Ungar later did experience was clearly related to the entrenchment of Jewish economic hegemony, which worked against Poles. One Pole said: "I don't know about Lvov, but around here they [the Jews] own all the big buildings, they own the stores, they own the banks. They take our money, and you can bet that they make sure Poles can't get into business themselves." (p. 86)

Ungar provides a seldom-heard Jewish viewpoint of service in the Polish Army just prior and during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He discusses training, tactics, mobilization, and his wounding during a Luftwaffe air raid.

Polish nationalists commonly suppose that even totally assimilated Jews (like Ungar) seldom become Poles at heart. Along these lines, Ungar candidly admitted that: "I would never have called myself a patriotic Pole..." (p. 31).

After Poland's defeat, Ungar made it back to Lviv, in the Soviet-occupied zone. He touched on Jewish-Soviet collaboration: "It also seemed to Wusia [Ungar's first wife] that they [the Soviets] trusted Jews more than Poles or Ukrainians." (p. 120). "Besides that, you began to see Jews in high positions, which would have been unthinkable before. There were Jewish army officers, Jewish party members, and Jewish city officials." (pp. 136-137)

Up to the time of Operation Barbarossa, most local Jews thought of the Germans as a cultured people who wouldn't do especial harm to the Jews (p. 154). After the Lviv Ghetto was formed, some of the Jewish ghetto police acted reasonably towards their fellow Jews. "But many acted more like devoted servants in the hope of ingratiating themselves with the Gestapo. Others were just callous, brutal people, untouched by any of the nobler sentiments when it came to hunting down their fellows. That was how the Germans turned Jew against Jew." (pp. 171-172). "Neither of us knew any [Jewish] policemen, besides which, many of them were cruel and unscrupulous." (p. 277).

While at Janowska Labor Camp, Ungar was denounced to the Gestapo by oberjude (the German-appointed chief of the Jewish workers) Tenenbaum (p. 253, 276).

Contrary to some reports, Ungar never claims to have been at Belzec. He saw some bodies along the railroad tracks, inferring them to have originated from a failed escape from a Belzec-bound train (p. 298, 321).

Unfortunately, Ungar cheapens his work through a sudden outburst of primitive Polonophobic innuendo late in the book. He denigrates the AK after accusing it, without a shred of supporting evidence, of being behind the killing of Rabbi Barfield. (p. 313, 316). Following Yitzhak Shamir, Ungar blanket-slurs the Poles for imbibing anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk. (p. 316)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for students of the Holocaust, October 14, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Destined to Live (Hardcover)

When the Germans invaded and conquered Poland, a young Polish soldier was in more peril than most. Wilo Ungar was Jewish and badly wounded. Because he wore the Polish uniform he was given the last rites by a priest who thought Ungar was Catholic. For the months after his recovery that he was held prisoner by the Germans he was saved by his captors ignorance of his ethnicity. Finally released he made his way back through war-ravaged Poland on crutches. He was given refuge by Polish families and eventually smuggled himself across the German-Soviet border, was captured by the NKVD and imprisoned as a spy. Ultimately he made his way back to the city of Lvov and reunion with his girl. They married and when Germany turned on Russia, they and their baby Michael managed for a while to evade Nazi roundups but in 1942 they were caught and separated in a time when the Nazi holocaust was being carried out in earnest. Highly recommended for students of the Holocaust, Destined To Live is the riveting story of Wilo's search for his family in a world of love and death, organized violence and the indomitable human spirit.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Man and His Book, May 22, 2005

By 

Lorraine D. Iervolino "vanlori" (Corsicana, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Destined to Live (Hardcover)

I have read this book and have learned so much more about my husband's employer. We always knew Mr. Unger had a heart of gold. He has helped our family so much through hard times, when the economy was so low. Never once has he laid his employees off. My husband, Joe Iervolino began working for Mr. Unger when he was 19. He is now 65 and ready to retire and still working for Mr. Unger. Throughout all of the hardship this man endured, he has always shown compassion and loyalty to those he employs. There must be thousands throughout the United States. He came here almost penniless, yet he has made thousands enjoy the best of what being a middle class American has to offer.
His sponsorship of the Holocaust Museums in NY and DC has educated millions of people. His company, National Envelope has given thousands of people well meaningful employment. The next time you throw out an envelope that contains junk mail, a letter from a loved one or a bill, you are probably handling a product made by a National Envelope Employee, such as my Joe.
Read the book. It will touch you in such a way as he has touched our lives and made us thankful that this immigrant made it to our shores.
Destined to Live is one of the best Holocaust survivor books I have ever read. It will open your eyes to how inhumane some men can become. After becoming a victom of such men, William Unger not only survived but, became a great human being. He shows only compassion to others and hates no one. He is the ultimate survivor and an example to all of us who suffered through any sort of inhumanity. I feel this book is a "Must Read" for everyone, young and old, alike.