Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Jack Gun - August 12, 1999

So you were liberated.

Yes.

Did you feel joyful?

I don't remember being joyful. I guess I felt uh, I lost too much to be joyful.

Did you feel anything?

Numb. I felt uh, again I have to, I have to quote my brother. My brother says I uh, I was like a person that they put in a freezer for two years and took him out to thaw him out. I showed no emotions. You know, for a kid at this time I was almost ten. And uh, you know, I look today, I look--I have a grandson nine and a half years old. And I think to myself, when I was his age, I already went through all that. And at ten I was already liberated. I cannot picture, or, or even think of how--I mean, he is a kid. I cannot picture a kid that age going through something that I went through and survive.

Did you feel like a kid?

I don't think so. I was never a kid. I had to be grown up at seven. I had to know that I can't holler and I can't uh, talk too loud and I can't uh, have this and can't have that. And uh, I don't think I ever felt as a kid, unfortunately.

Your childhood was, what?

There was no childhood.

There was no childhood.

Don't remember ever playing games. Uh, riding a bicycle. Nothing like that.

You once told me you felt like a frozen body.

Mm-hm.

As if you were in some deep freeze, is that what you were...

Yes.

And, and how long did it take to thaw out? Or did you?

Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder. But I, I must have, because I did lead, you know, leading a normal life, life as much as--like I said previously, I don't think none of us are really normal. But as normal as you can be, going through that.