Esther Feldman Icikson - October 23 & 29, November 5 & 12, 2001
Father
Were they in a work--a, a labor camp?
No, no, no. That was not a labor camp, they were locked up.
Just a prison.
Oh yeah, because my dad was sentenced to die. He was already in isolation for twenty-some days. And um, he had this terrible dream. Um, he was in isolation and at six in the morning the bed automatically tossed him off and jumped back into the wall. And so one morning he was dreaming that a bird came to the window and knocked on the window and it was bringing him a message. And my dad--you know, some people dream more than others--and he was, he, he, he, he would dream a lot. And in his dream he started screaming because he wanted to hear the message from the bird, because supposedly it was bringing him a message from his family, in his dream, you see. And he screamed so loud that the uh, guard uh, was absolutely beside himself. He, he didn't know what happened to this man. So he called the doctor and um, they took him out of isolation and put him in a other cell with one more person. Evidently they were getting ready for amnesty, you see. They already knew...
Ah, I see.
...that they're going to set him free.
Approximately when was this now?
I don't know.
Nineteen forty-two already?
No, no, that was, I think it was the end of '41. When did...
So the Germans had invaded.
The Germans invaded already. Russia, when did the...
June or July. June, late June.
Okay, so that was the end of '41. It was the end of '41, because we left Siberia at the end of '41. Yeah.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn