That reminds me of something that I coincidentally read earlier today:
While crossing a river into [Soviet] Eastern Poland, he was accused by [Soviet] soldiers of being a [Fascist] spy and was sent to a Siberian labor camp as a prisoner of war. In freezing conditions, my grandfather was forced to carry sleepers for the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Fortunately, his skill as a tradesman paved the way for a transfer to a kolkhoz, a collective farm, where he survived the war. His brother, Zachariah, was the only other one of the ten siblings to survive. Tragically, over 150 members of the Rudzyn family were mercilessly sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.
Yes, I can see the obvious: I am well aware that being unfairly suspected of anticommunist espionage and then sent to a labour camp fucking stinks. On the other hand, there was the alternative…
Indeed. We certainly have a duty to learn from the failures of our predecessors just as much as the successes, and to minimize excess wherever possible, but even then the character anticommunists ascribe to the Soviet prison system is wildly off-base. Again, thanks for the work you do!
That reminds me of something that I coincidentally read earlier today:
(Source.)
Yes, I can see the obvious: I am well aware that being unfairly suspected of anticommunist espionage and then sent to a labour camp fucking stinks. On the other hand, there was the alternative…
Indeed. We certainly have a duty to learn from the failures of our predecessors just as much as the successes, and to minimize excess wherever possible, but even then the character anticommunists ascribe to the Soviet prison system is wildly off-base. Again, thanks for the work you do!