Israel Unger was born in 1938 in the west Galician city of Tarnów. Together with his parents and his brother, he survived the Holocaust in a ten-square-meter hiding place in the attic of a factory. However, even after the war, many Jews in Poland did not feel safe. After the Kielce pogrom in July 1946, Israel's parents sent him and his brother to France, and in 1947 they followed their children. The family's precarious life as stateless individuals only came to an end when they were able to emigrate together to Canada in 1951. There, Israel Unger became a renowned chemist, professor, and dean at the University of New Brunswick.