During World War II, David Murin fled from Riga, Latvia to Soviet territory. After a long and difficult journey he arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he enrolled in a road engineering college. In 1943, Murin was conscripted into the Red Army and sent to the front. As his unit disembarked from the train in the town of Rozisce, near Kovel, Poland, Murin found a piece of Torah scroll parchment on the ground: "It was the size of the palm of my hand," recalled Murin, who kept the parchment fragment safe in his army backpack throughout the war, even at the heights of battle. For him, the small fragment served to commemorate the rich Jewish life that had existed there and now lay in ruins. Only when Murin returned to Riga after the war did he discover that he was the sole survivor of his family.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Donated by David Murin, Kfar Saba, Israel
