Name Izrael Deutsch | ||
Izrael Zachariah Deutsch Top #5 Facts
Izrael Zachariah Deutsch was born March 15, 1934, in Komjata, Czechoslovakia. He also went by "Izrael Deutsch" and later "Harry Dunai".
Izrael was born deaf. He had nine brothers and sister. At age six his mother took him to the Jewish Institute for the Deaf in Budapest. One of four deaf schools in Europe at the time.
On January 18, 1945, Russian soldiers liberated the area where Izrael was living. Both of Izrael's parents and two of his brothers were killed in the war.
In 1956 he was able to get a visa and go to Sweden. He traveled through Europe, connecting with scattered Holocaust survivors, relatives, and deaf friends. He settled in Los Angeles and married a deaf Jewish woman.
In 2002 he wrote a memoir about his experiences as a deaf Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust called Surviving in Silence: A Deaf Boy in the Holocaust, The Harry I. Dunai Story.