Only in America: From Holocaust to National Industry Leadership

William Ungar is said to have been only one of two people who survived the Belzec death camp in German-occupied Poland. (The survival rate from this camp was very low: Many more survived Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz). In this book, however, Ungar only briefly alludes to his wartime experiences. (In his other book, DESTINED TO LIVE, Ungar nowhere claims to ever have been at Belzec). Ungar began his life in America as an assembly-line worker. It grew from there. There are a few factual errors in the book. Ungar claims that, in prewar Poland, it was almost impossible for a Jew to enter a university (p. 7). This is patently untrue. Despite the numerus clausus, designed to provide more opportunities for Polish gentiles by limiting Jewish enrollment, the fraction of Jews in the universities was usually comparable to their proportion in the general Polish population (10%). Fidel Castro's takeover is described as one where it was not generally known that Castro was a Communist (p. 62). Some would very much dispute that. Ungar is a strong proponent of ethics in business. This is elaborated in his preface. He not only describes his increasingly-successful life in the USA, but also places it in the context of the changes in American society. For instance, shift work was uncommon before WWII. A temporary necessity during the war, it stayed on during the postwar period. The technological advances have been equally impressive. He says: "Nowadays, at the beginning of the 21st century, typewriters have become museum pieces...Other innovations were having at least as great an impact--credit cards, for example." (p. 65), Decentralization became a feature in Ungar's company in recent decades. Each section had a manager who was responsible for productivity.

Co-authored by William Ungar and David Chanoff, Only In America: From Holocaust To National Industry Leadership is the informative second volume to William Ungar's extraordinary autobiography. At age 92, William Ungar is taking the time to reflect upon his great and many accomplishments, having come from the penniless holocaust survivor at age 33 to the successful owner of what is now one of Fortune's 500 largest privately owned firms. Follow Only In America through the inspirational stories of the Holocaust survivor through the streets of New York as Ungar makes his way from job searching to employing. Only In America is highly recommended reading for the non-specialist reader.