Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Samuel Biegun - February 15, 1983

Attempting to Move to Israel

Did your family have wait to leave, they couldn't leave when they wanted to?

Yeah, we had to wait. A lot of people had to smuggle, you know, and it took, took time.

Who helped you smuggle out? Who helped you?

The Jewish agency, yeah.

Do you remember which Jewish agency?

Uh...

Wife: Was it ???

No, probably wasn't uh, from Israel, I mean, from then Palestine, you know. Uh, I don't exactly remember. Probably uh, it was from Israel, I mean from, from, uh...

Wife: Here?

Not from here, but...

It wasn't HIAS, was it?

Could be part of it because they had to pay the Russian to bribe 'em. The Russian knew that who, who we are, you know. But they let us--they didn't, didn't--they looked away. And, you know, probably bribed 'em, paid a few dollars.

Okay, how did, how did, how did you sneak out? How did it, how did it go about it?

Well, we had to go out in closed up trucks, you know. It was at night, only at night we traveled. And uh, somehow we went to that Russian uh, post. And uh, I looked--I sneaked out and I remember and I seen 'em shaking hand--they probably had money in it, so. But we knew, the Russian, he could have stopped 'em.

Wife: ???

Well, sure.

Wife: All the Jews in Poland had to go this way out from Poland to go to Germany and from Germany to Israel.

Or to United States or to whatever, you know.

Wife: But in Poland to get out was very hard.


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