“I was called into the very first transport. They took us, one thousand young men from Ostrava, to a deep forest close to the Polish-Russian border.

There, it felt as if the soldiers suddenly didn’t know what to do with us – the concentration camp where the railway tracks ended wasn’t nearly built yet.

After some nerve-wrecking hours, our guards stepped aside and opened fire. They were shooting mostly in the air. Everyone ran.

After we were in safe distance, me and my uncle caught our breath and found our direction – freedom was close. We swam across the Sam river and reached the city of Sambor.

There, the Jewish Community took good care of us. They gave us clothes and food. I soon started going to high school again.

Next summer, the Soviet police picked us up at night. We were indicted, – for “illegal border crossing” – sentenced on the spot and sent to a Gulag.”