Baruch Kimmerling was born in the Transylvanian town of Turda, Romania in 1939.[3] He was born with cerebral palsy, a developmental disability which would confine him to a wheelchair for the last three decades of his life.[2] His family narrowly avoided the Holocaust by escaping from Turda in a Romani wagon in 1944, after rumors of the imminent deportation of the Jews began circulating. During the journey, the wagon was strafed by a German plane. When the Kimmerling family returned to Turda after the war had ended, they discovered their property had gone.[3] The family immigrated to Israel in 1952, and took up residence in a ma'abara (immigrants' camp), Sha'ar ha-Aliya, before moving to a small apartment on the outskirts of Netanya.[4]