Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Jack Gun - August 12, 1999

No one had occupied the house.

Yes, it was occupied by German soldiers. So we were in the house for a little while. And one day I was uh, in, on the outside bathroom and all of a sudden I heard my brother screaming, "Yankel, Yankel, come out." I says, "What happened?" He says, "We gotta run." "Run?" I says, "Run where?" He says, "The Germans are back, coming in." Because the front was still, we were right by the border. So all of a sudden the Germans came back into Rozhishche. And we crossed, there was that river there. We crossed the bridge and got onto Army trucks, Russian Army trucks took us with them to a little town by the name of Keverts. That was, that was on the way to Rovno. I don't know if it's on the map. And uh, then we got on a train and went into Rovno. Rovno was already, again, little, but a lot of bombing going on in Rovno while we were there. And there they had, it was a big city. Over there they had shelters. We used to go--I remember them very vividly. We used to go to the bomb shelters.

Underground?

Underground.

How did you feel about that? No windows?

No windows. [pause] I felt like being in the bunker again. But I did it. I had no choice. And we lived some place, on a big--I don't know if it was a institution. I don't know if it was a hospital at one time or some...A lot of refugees from all over were there. No food. Uh, we used to go around begging to little houses. Begging for food. And I know we hit one house and they were a real old couple. And it was still cold. Must have been maybe in April, I don't know when. Still cold, you know th...th...over there it was not like in the States where April you already walk in short sleeves. And they still had to heat the house. And we used to saw wood for this older couple. And they used to give us uh, dried up bread, ??? and that's what we ate. Bread and water. And we were there, I don't know. I really don't remember how long. Maybe a couple months. And then we heard that it's, that the Russians threw 'em back farther and that Rozhishche was back occupied by the Russians. So we went back again. Excuse me. And this was uh, from then on, the Germans never came back anymore. That maybe it was May, June, summertime of '44.