Gorun and his mother, sister, and two brothers had been driven into the desert with many others. There they wandered, in the darkness of night, with neither food nor water, eating only what weeds and berries, they could find about them. Gorin's mother had brought with them one pan, in which she cooked this meager harvest.

Arika, Gorun's sister, was two years old and their mother could no longer carry her. Three times, her mother abandoned the child, and three times she returned to her. Finally she said, " I will remain here and die with my child!"

Eventually, Arika was given to an Arab on a donkey. Later, in Bethlehem, she was retrieved. Today she lives in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Gorun spent time in relief camps, set up to shelter refugees from the genocide. One of these was Camp Port Sa'id, in Egypt. He came to the United States in 1924.