Before deportation: Escaping from the occupying armies

“Do you know why your father hid in the forest with other men? 

No, no, I couldn’t tell you. Of course, we asked our mother and she told me that my father did not want to fight in the war, he didn’t want to take sides. He hid so as not to be called up, either by the Soviets or by the Germans.

So he was denounced as a deserter?
Yes, that’s it: my mother said that when the Soviets arrived he even hung a red flag from his house.”