Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map
• Video

Jack Gun - August 12, 1999

Jack Gun was born in Rozhishche, Poland, where he lived with his father, mother and older brother and sister. Rozhishche was later annexed into the Ukraine by the Soviets at the outbreak of the war in September 1939. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Gun family was forced to move into a make-shift ghetto in the city where they were used as forced laborers. In August of 1942, the ghetto was liquidated by the Germans and Jack's father, mother and sister were killed. Jack and his brother managed to flee and received help from their father's non-Jewish friend. Upon this man's urging, Jack and his brother hid first in the woods and then in a bunker they dug in a field. After several near-misses with the occupation authorities, the two were hidden in a non-Jewish Ukrainian household where they remained until the Russians liberated the Ukraine in 1944.

View Video on YouTube

Link to Portraits of Honor Project

1. Introduction
2. Pre-War Life
3. Religious Life
4. Relations with non-Jews
5. Outbreak of War
6. Soviet Occupation
7. German Invasion
8. Impression of Germans
9. German Occupation
10. Conditions in Ghetto
11. Receiving Help
12. Labor in Ghetto
13. Liquidation of Ghetto
14. Hiding in Barn
15. Escape from Barn
16. Osawa
17. Mr. Yerushka
18. Hiding in Forest
19. Conditions in Forest
20. Ukrainian Policeman
21. Hiding in Bunker
22. Lack of Feelings
23. Leaving the Bunker
24. Back in Hiding
25. Conditions While in Hiding
26. Betrayed
27. Liberated by Russians
28. Return of Germans
29. Liberation
30. DP Camp
31. Brother Leaves
32. Vladimir-Volynsk
33. Return to Poland
34. Travelling Around Poland
35. Vienna
36. Conditions in DP Camp
37. Brother's Wedding
38. Emigration to America
39. Pennsylvania
40. Telling Story
41. Visiting Poland
42. Telling Children
43. Talking about Experiences