The Inspired Intermedia digital book collection
Issue link: https://inspired.uberflip.com/i/1543795
Part One: The Foundations of the Volftsun Family 23 he was released. Shlomo knew that one day he would be arrested and either murdered or sent to Siberia. It wasn't obvious to him which would be worse. The third time Shlomo was arrested was the most traumatic, especially for Iosif. The sense of despair and hopelessness among the family was at its peak. Iosif remembers seeing his father's face behind the barred windows of the three-story jail where he was confined. Iosif passed the prison on the way to school everyday, and it broke his heart to know his Above: Ida (le) and some high school iends in Moscow, 1938. share a kitchen with other families. Shlomo held interest in a mill, a general store, and a bookstore, and the communists also took all that property away. Fear was everywhere as government agents brutalized the population. We know now that Shlomo dreamed about taking the family out of the country, but never actually implemented a plan. Rosa, however, reports that her father was actually more committed to this possibility than we have seen. She recalls that her father was actively searching the border for a good way to cross om Ukraine to Poland without being detected by the border guards. He would take a horse-drawn wagon near the border just for this purpose. It was during one of these reconnoitering expeditions that Shlomo's cart collided with another horse-drawn wagon. In this accident, Shlomo's foot was crushed, effectively ending his quest to escape to Palestine or America. The most traumatic incidents of life in Gorodok, as far the children were concerned, were Shlomo's three arrests by the police and other corrupt agents of the government. The police would come in the middle of the night and pound on the door or break it down. Shlomo was immediately seized. The children cried, but Shlomo never cried in ont of the family. All the terrified children gathered around their mother, standing helpless in the corner while the police tore the house apart, ripping open pillows, pulling up floorboards, all in a vain attempt to find the gold they felt sure Shlomo, like all Jews, had hidden or buried or stashed away. It turns out that the gold that the communists were looking for really did exist. Shlomo had indeed buried money and told only Iosif where to find it. Many years later, Iosif tried to locate the money but could never find the specific spot. When the police failed to find the gold, their practice was to intimidate Shlomo by dragging him to the police station. The first two times he was arrested, Shlomo was held by the secret police in the local jail for a few weeks before