Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Samuel Biegun - February 15, 1983

Life Before the War

All right, uh, when you were, when your family lived in Pinsk, what was, what was the household like? Did you have a religious home?

I had mostly yeah, they were a religious home.

What was, what was the household like on, on Shabbos?

On Shabbos is, uh...

Yeah.

...nobody was working on--went to shul, as I can remember and the holidays, celebrating all the holidays.

How large was your town?

There were fifty thousand people, population.

And...

And there were thirty-five thousand Jewish--Jews that time.

You uh, did you go to a, a public school?

Yes, I went, I went to a Jewish school.

You went to a Jewish school.

Yes.

Describe your education a little bit.

Well, I just uh, I was uh, eight years old we were deported so I only had one, two grades, you know.

Wife: You did Russian. In Pinsk you went--in ??? you went to a Yiddish...

No, it was a, a Jewish school.

Wife: Jewish school, okay and then they, they deported him to Siberia.

Okay, we're going, we're going to get to that in just a moment. Uh, was there in your family any politics ever discussed?

What kind of politics?

Well, for instance uh, like the Bund or the Zionists?

Yes.

Did your family...

I was, I was too young to remember it, about the politics uh, that time.

Did your family--were they very political themselves?

No, they weren't political. They're were like ???...


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