Tag #130147 - Interview #78421 (Gavril Marcuson)

In 1941, when we entered the war against the USSR, the first thing that happened to me was that they kicked me out of the army and sent me to forced labor, to the shooting range. My father was too old to get sent to forced labor, and my brother was too young. I remember the first bombings caught me there. The Russians were bombing Bucharest, and we were working under military supervision and couldn’t take cover anywhere. We worked with our bare arms or with shovels to build the shooting range, and we got neither food, nor money. We worked like slaves – but the slaves in ancient times were fed at least. We worked from dawn till dusk. In winter, they would have us clear the snow in the streets.