Born in 1913 in the town of Gorodenka, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, he graduated in Agricultural Engineering. At the beginning of WWII he was mobilized into the Red Army, and later was sent to labor battalions in Siberia. In 1959 he was arrested in Poland and charged with Zionist activity and with contacts with the Israeli Embassy in attempts to locate Jewish children who had been saved from the Nazis in churches, monasteries and by private parties. He was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment. Released in 1962 and soon after left for Israel.