Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Jack Gun - August 12, 1999

So your brother's now out of the hospital. They're not going to let him get away with this, are they?

No, my brother. He thought he was going to get away. But a few months after that uh, the, the, the draft board came, a man came with a slip and said uh, "Anschel Gun," he says, "we need you to report to the draft board." So he went to the draft board. And uh, with the Russians there's no monkey business, they said, "You're a soldier as of now." So he says, "Now wait a minute," He says, "I have a ten year old brother." He says, "we just got through Hitler. He's all alone." He says "Don't worry," he says, "we'll take care of him." He says, "Fine," he says, "but I have to go, at least talk to him, make some arrangements for him in the meantime." He says, "Please give me twenty-four hours." And they agreed. They let him go. And this must have been approximately September--October of '44, I would say. Because I remember, my, my brother doesn't remember this. And I remember somehow that they, we, I was in a little synagogue and it was some kind of holiday. Or Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah uh, went with somebody else. Another lady that stayed in our house, an older woman. And I went to shul, and he knew that I was gonna be there and he found me. And he came over and he says, "Listen," he says, "they want to draft me to the Russian Army and I decided I'm not going." He says, "If I survived Hitler I don't want to get killed now by Hitler in the war." He says, "I'm leaving town, I don't know where I'm going. But I will let you know."

So you're going to stay alone now.

He says, "You stay here in the house and Malka," an older woman, she must have been maybe sixty, he says, "Malka will take care of you." And he left. I didn't--I don't remember crying when he left.

Did you cry at any time except for that one moment?

Did I, only thing I remember crying is when they wanted to take me to the hospital.

That's the only time.

I'm sure I must have cried some other times. But this one stands out in my mind, for some reason.

Now, did the Russians come for him?

Oh yeah.

So they came to your house.

Sure. Naturally they came looking. "Where is your brother?" "I have no idea." And the Russians have another technique. They used to come at midnight. Wake you out of your sleep. They figure that's a--your mind is clear. I don't know what they. But this is their technique of int...interrogating you at night. And they used to take me out of bed, take me into the KGB. They were nice, they were not, not beating me or any...but questioning. They figured, you know, from a ten year old kid, you know, you'll get some. "We know that your brother left and that he let you know where he is and." "Don't know anything." And they did it for awhile, a few times. And they noticed that they can't get anything out of me so they--what are you going to do to me. They threatened me, they're going to ship me into Russia to a orphanage home and stuff, stuff like that. But they never did. And they let me go. And the meantime I did receive word where he was.