Avri Andre Unger, z"l, was born March 3, 1928 in Pie'stany, Czechoslovakia and died July 26, 2015 at The Jewish Home, San Francisco. His life was brutally interrupted in 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. Avri's next home was an orphanage near Jerusalem. He spoke neither Hebrew nor Yiddish. During this period Avri suffered the loss of his mother, brother, and sister.
Avri enlisted in the British army at the age of 16. He was trained as a soldier in Egypt and shipped to Europe to fight in the war there. He returned to Israel in 1948 to fight in the War of Independence. Avri was wounded in the Galilee and subsequently decorated as one of the men in the first truck to push through the blockade of Jerusalem.
After the War of Independence, Avri was among a group of veterans who went south to Eilat. These pioneers formed a very successful fishing cooperative that established modern fishing in that area. Avri's son, Nir, was born in 1958.
After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Avri became employed by the Marine Research Institute, leading a great number of scientific and mapping expeditions to the then unknown Sinai. The following years were spent in Massawa, off the east African coast of Ethiopia, now Eritrea, as a trawler captain for a skills training project of the agriculture and fishery ministry. A friend recalls Avri as being a selfless person who always helped those in need, and who worked with others from his good heart, with lots of patience.
Funeral and burial at Gan Shalom Cemetery, Briones, August 5 2015.