Baruch German (1857-1930) was born in Kuniv, Ukraine, and spent most of his life there and in the surrounding countryside as a timber merchant and circuit-riding “dayan,” or religious judge. The 1897 Russian census listed the population of Kuniv, then Kunev, as 2,935, of whom 1,661, or 57%, were Jewish.

Russian czarist records from 1905, listing citizens registered to vote for the Duma (Parliament), classified Baruch German as a “realty owner.” The "realty" was a large duplex where he had built amid apple and pear trees during the 1890s.

Baruch left the house during the late 1920s to visit his son Haskell German

in Dubno. Communist authorities would not allow him to return. Baruch left

the house to Bas-sheva Gherman, the wife of his son Herschel. Herschel's daughter Sonya left in 1932 to work as a clerk in Kharkov. Bas-sheva stayed until 1939. Bas-Sheva temporarily gave the house to a photographer who was in the good graces of the Communist Party. At the outbreak of World War II in Russia, June 22, 1941, the photographer's sister sold the house for 10,000 rubles.