Yerucham Apfel came from the southern Polish town of Mielec. On March 9, 1942, he was separated from his parents by the occupying regime and had to perform forced labor in an airplane factory. As the Red Army approached in 1944, the prisoners were driven from one camp to another until they embarked on a death march from Kaufering towards Landshut in Bavaria.
In April 1945, Apfel and his fellow prisoner Arthur Fisch managed to escape their guards near the Lower Bavarian village of Parnkofen in the Dingolfing district. They went to a remote farm. Their emaciated bodies in prisoners’ clothing immediately told the surprised farmer, Josef Dinzinger, who he was dealing with. Although a Nazi officer lived in the house, the farmer hid the two Jews in the yard and gave them food and blankets for the night, helped by his wife Maria. Even when the farm was occupied as Wehrmacht staff quarters a few days later, the Dinzingers did not send the Jewish men away.
In 1957 Yerucham Apfel traveled from Israel to Parnkofen to lay a wreath with the words “In memory of the man who saved my life” on the grave of Josef Dinzinger, who had died in 1948.