In 1939, Harry Kabran was 18 years old and had just opened his shop as an "over tailor", making the leather tops of shoes and boots. That same year Harry was called to the Polish Army to fight Hitler who was attacking Poland. He was taken prisoner, along with thousands of other Polish soldiers and was assigned to work on a farm in Germany taking care of horses.

After nine months of working on the farm, he escaped. With the German soldiers chasing him, he walked across Germany, hiding in the wheat fields during the day and traveling at night. When Harry returned home to his family in Poland, the Soviets did not believe that he had escaped and walked across Germany. They thought he was a spy and locked him up. Then he was transported in an overcrowded freight car to a prison camp in the far north of Russia. Life was severe as he slept in unheated barracks enduring temperatures ranging from 35 to 75 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. In the work camp, the prisoners cut down trees and dragged them to a frozen river. When the ice melted in the Spring, the logs floated down the river to a sawmill.

After a year, Harry was released from the Arctic prison camp. He got a job in a Soviet flour mill. It was a physically demanding job in which he spent the day lifting and hauling 170-pound bags of flour. He was under constant surveillance by the Soviet Secret Police who threatened to kill him.

In 1943 Harry enlisted in the reconstituted Polish Army and fought alongside the Russians driving the Germans out of Russia and Poland. Along the way, Harry's unit liberated the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for women. His unit also marched into Berlin and met the American Army.

After the war, an Israeli underground group smuggled Harry out of Poland, across Europe, to Italy. In 1949, with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Harry connected with his family in New York City, sailed to the United States, and joined his family in America.

Initiated by Howard Dolgin
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