Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Samuel Biegun - February 15, 1983

Let's talk about that. The war was over now.

Yes.

You wanted to go back.

Polish citizen we couldn't, we couldn't go back to our place because uh, we knew what's going on, you know, anti-Semitism so we went back to Poland. Okay uh, we didn't know where the father was. I mean, we knew where he was but he couldn't--we couldn't go at the same time, so we started out.

We.

Well, my, my--me, mother, brother and sister and the older people died and the father wasn't there. So went as far as Shchity. Well, as soon as we passed the Russian border we felt that they hate the Jews and we had to hide again after the war. They had the Polish uh, people very bad to us. And as soon as we crossed the border, they were looking for Jews.

Who was?

The Polish, Polish uh, people.

Why?

They hated--they didn't like the Jews there.

Wife: ???

If they had found you, what might have happened?

They might have killed us.

Wife: In Poland after the war they used to make pogrom, pogrom.

Very hostile. And one night, you know, when we passed we were very scared because they, they came to the, to the trains and asking if we got any Jews. And uh, somehow they say no, because there were Polish people there too. And uh, so we were traveling farther, we didn't know exactly where we were going. So one day--I had some friends who were Russian, White Russian--I forgot the name of the town where we came down, you know, it was the train stopped, came down, and uh, we met a man, you know. So he said, "Who are you?" you know, we told him who I am, so I said I am, one of my friends said he's Polish and the other said he's White Russian and I said I'm Jewish. He said, "Don't say that," he said, "They'll kill you." So we went as far as Shchity and we stayed there. And uh, we didn't plan to stay in Poland in at all because uh, we heard that there's a pogrom in Kielce. I don't know if you heard about it, it was right after the war, '46. So we stayed about six months and uh, the Russian Army had to protect us from the--some Polish people that uh, they just wanted to kill the Jews again, you know. It was after the war. We stayed about six months and uh, we had to smuggle the border to go to Berlin.