...On Thursday, February 17, 1949, the first arrests took place among the members of the group. One of the leaders, Izya Drak, was also detained. Froim, coming home from the music school, saw the Chekists spinning there. Without giving a sign, Shestun climbed the stairs and hid on the landing as close to the attic as possible. After waiting for the uninvited guests to finish the search, the guy went down to the apartment, packed his things and went to Vinnitsa to his parents.

In Vinnitsa, Froim sat out until the end of spring break. No information was received from Lviv, and the young man was sure that everything worked out. After the holidays, he returned to study in Lviv ... He was arrested almost immediately and held as an ordinary participant.

The interrogations in the Lviv MGB prison were difficult. To ensure compliance, criminals in the uniform of investigators turned over the stool and allowed the arrested to sit, leaning only on one or two legs. The interrogation took place day and night, during the breaks the guard constantly looked into the cell. And God forbid you fall asleep – they immediately knocked on the metal door with a truncheon, waking up the exhausted person under investigation.

In response to the all-Union campaign against the Jews, the EMG tried to make the case of the Union of Jewish Youth as serious as possible and to link it with the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (EAK). The main evidence was the acquaintance of the CEM members with Mikhail (Munya) Spivak. Munya Spivak, founder of the Jewish youth organization “Einikite” (“Unity”) in Zhitomir, came to Lviv to study. There he met Felix Berger and attended one of the CEM meetings, where the texts of the new leaflets were discussed. A distant relative of Munya was Professor Eli Spivak from Kiev, a corresponding member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, who participated in the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Munya Spivak became a link between CEM, EAK and “Einikite”.

Froim Shestun spent several months in the dungeons of the Lviv MGB prison. The investigation tried to press, and then to persuade. But he never betrayed anyone, including the last free member of the organization Vilya Gonikman, his fellow student, who remained in Vinnitsa.

From the Lviv prison Shestun was transferred to Zolochiv. There he and his comrades awaited the verdict, which was to come from Moscow. Three weeks later, in July 1949, Shestun was summoned to the office of an officer who read out the verdict of the Special Meeting under the NKVD of the USSR – 10 years in forced labor camps.

Operatives of the Lviv UMGB so much advertised their operation to capture especially dangerous Jewish nationalists that information about the case of the Union of Jewish Youth even got into the official brochure of the Higher School of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR “Anti-Soviet activities of Jewish nationalists and the fight against it by state security agencies” 1956 year.

All his life Froim Srulevich recalled his transfer. In the “Stolypin” carriage, he fell asleep, leaning against the wall – and by morning his sweatshirt was so frozen that he could not move. In the carriage were the crime bosses, who knew in advance who was “s-ka” (traitor), who was a thief, who was political. Shestun was lucky: he was accompanied by Jews who had been serving time “for politics” for more than one time. They took patronage over the young man, and no one touched him until Zhezkazgan of the Karaganda region, where they arrived.

Yesterday's student of the music school was expected to do hard labor on the construction of the railway. Wake up at half past five in the morning. Working day was 10-12 hours, for lunch – a bowl of gruel of fish heads and bran. Froim went to work every day as if it was the last time. Once, together with three other prisoners, he carried a heavy railroad tie along a narrow mountain path. There was very poor visibility, and one of the prisoners, walking in front, stumbled and fell into the gorge. The whole burden fell on Froim, who was the last. Thanks to incredible tension, he was able to stay on his feet, although in his thoughts he had already said goodbye to life.

In Steplag, as in all similar zones, special skills were valued, therefore, when the “boss” once asked which of the prisoners played musical instruments, Froim volunteered immediately. Shestun took a violin in his hands and began to play in a way that, he later admitted, had never played. Life was at stake. And the boss was imbued with: the young man was really immediately transferred from unbearably hard work, on which health and life were very quickly lost, to lighter ones.

After three and a half years in prison, Froim was even more fortunate. The administration official couldn't find a good barber for his stubborn beard. It occurred to someone that the skillful hands of the musician would cope with this task. And Shestun tried himself in the unusual role of a barber. It worked out well, but... it was not only the leadership of the camp that had to shave and cut a haircut. His responsibilities included shaving hardened criminals with disfigured skulls and deep scars on their faces. Still, it was much better than driving piles into frozen clay or carrying heavy bags of cement.

In 1951, in the same place, in Steplag, Froim met the violin virtuoso Alexander Yakulov, in the future – the musical director of the Romen Theater. Yakulov worked in the camp bath and also played the violin for the authorities. Together with Shestun, they began to give concerts for staff and prisoners.

In 1954, Froim Shestun, who served 5 years and 8 months, was released “for lack of proof of the crime”. The prisoner returned to Vinnitsa.

After the camp, Shestun decided that he did not intend to tie up with music – fortunately, and in the camp he almost did not interrupt his studies. The violinist and teacher Kogan, who came specially to listen to the young man, invited the former political prisoner to return to the Lviv Music School. Shestun recovered in the first year and after six months transferred to the second. It was possible to take exams as an external student, and the oldest student on the stream graduated from the school much earlier than his classmates. At the same time, Froim was finishing the 7th grade of the evening school. In the same school, in his first year, he met his future wife, also a violinist, Lyudmila Belaya.

Two years later, in 1957, Froim already worked at his alma mater, Vinnitsa Children's Music School No. 1, with his wife Lyudmila and sister Rosa Berkul, a piano teacher and accompanist.

Subsequently, he graduated from the Vinnitsa Pedagogical Institute, worked there at the Faculty of Music and Pedagogy, at the same time performing the role of accompanist of the orchestra of the Vinnitsa Music and Drama Theater and the musical group of the 45th Experimental Mechanical Plant. In the mid-1970s, he was promoted to head of the string department at Music School No. 1.

In 1972, KGB appeared again – to recruit. Many Jews worked in the educational institutions of Vinnitsa, and the authorities, as usual, tried to make an informant out of the former prisoner who is respected by people. Shestun's student at that moment was leaving for the United States and suggested that he and his family also apply for an exit. Either the “office” listened to their telephone conversations, or looked through the archives, but one “fine” day a “business proposal” came from the committee. But several meetings with the musician were completely unsuccessful, and Froim was left alone.

In 1989, when the family applied to leave for Israel, an investigator came to Froim from Lviv. For three days they sat on the CEM case. As a result, permission to leave was obtained.

In Israel, the family was divided: the daughter and son-in-law went to Bnei Brak, and Froim with his wife, father-in-law and mother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law went to the city of Beer Sheva in the south of the country. Then we moved to Dimona.

There was only one music school in Dimona, but work for professional musicians was soon found – in 1994 the Camerata-Dimona chamber ensemble was formed, in which Froim Shestun and his wife Lyudmila Belaya became the first violins. In the same 1994, Froim Shestun was recognized as a prisoner of Zion.

...Once a letter came to Shestun's address from an Israeli woman living somewhere in the north of Israel. The author was the same girl who, back in 1949, met with an MGB informant and blabbed about the group. She insisted on her innocence...

Until the end of his days, Froim did not part with the violin. Over the long years of his creative activity, Froim Shestun played many concerts, gave way to life for people who later reached noticeable heights in the profession. Among his students can be found the famous violin maker and teacher A. Sergienko, concertmaster of the Opera and Ballet Theater in Krasnoyarsk V. Pokotylyuk, I. Gorin from the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, L. Strakhova from the chamber ensemble in the Italian city of Rivoli.

Children and nieces followed his footsteps – they also make music. Unlike Froim's generation, neither the Ministry of State Security, nor the camp “urks”, nor state anti-Semitism stood in their way to their beloved work. Naive boys and girls from the distant post-war years nevertheless brought a bright future closer – although they paid for it with sweat, tears, and blood.