The Other Concentration Camps

One might be forgiven for thinking the photograph above is of a Nazi train deporting victims to the East. However, that is not the case—it is an image of deported Polish families to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan in 1941.

I believe that the USSR, particularly Russia) received too much credit for their part as the Allied troops. People seem to have forgotten that between 1 September 1939 and 22 June 1941, the Soviets were fighting with the Nazis, and there laid the foundation for the Holocaust together with the Nazis.

The USSR also murdered en mass—not only their enemies but also their people. Citizens who were not in line with the Soviet communist view would end up in Gulags. Just as with the Nazis, it didn’t take a lot for the Soviets to find an excuse to put people away.

The Gulags were Soviet labour camps and accompanying detention and transit camps and prisons from the 1920s to the mid-1950s. The word GULAG was born as an acronym. It stood for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei (which translates into English as Main Camp Administration). 

Two factors drove Stalin to expand the Gulag prisons at a merciless pace. The first was the Soviet Union’s desperate need to industrialize. The other force at work was Stalin’s Great Purge, sometimes called the Great Terror. It was a crackdown on all forms of dissent (real and imagined) across the Soviet Union. After the invasion by Nazi Germany of Poland, which marked the start of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) and Bukovina. According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens and inhabitants of the other annexed lands, regardless of their ethnic origin, were arrested and sent to the Gulag camps.

The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.

By 1936, the Gulag held a total of 5,000,000 prisoners, a number that probably was equal to or exceeded every subsequent year until Stalin died in 1953.

Prisoners in the Gulag could survive for many years with a constant stream of prisoners released. However, in terms of numbers, far more people suffered in the Gulag than in the Nazi camps. The types of suffering were different, although women, housed in separate barracks, were often mistreated worse than male prisoners.

They were often the victims of rape and violence at the hands of both inmates and guards. Many reported the most effective survival strategy was to take a “prison husband” someone who would exchange protection or rations for sexual favours.

If a woman had children, she would have to divide her rations to feed them, often as little as 140 grams of bread per day.

However, for some of the female prisoners, simply being allowed to keep their children was a blessing; many of the children in gulags were shipped off to distant orphanages. Often these mothers could never find their children after leaving the camps.

Sometimes, the Gulag authorities released pregnant women and women with young children in special amnesties.

Men at work on the Koylma Highway.

The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.

Fast forward to 2024, and although with a different name, the Gulags are still in Siberia

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Sources:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/soviet-gulag-photos#31

https://academic.oup.com/book/28410/chapter-abstract/228833821?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulag

https://miamioh.edu/cas/centers-institutes/havighurst-center/additional-resources/havighurst-special-programming/the-gulag/index.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/607546/gulag-stories-russia

https://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/women.php.html#:~:text=Women%20suffered%20greatly%20in%20the,pregnant%20while%20in%20the%20Gulag.

https://gulag.online/articles/historie-gulagu?locale=en

The USSczaR

Dear Comrade Putin,

You are telling the world that you have carried out this military mission in the Ukraine, to protect its citizens, to rid it of Nazis. However you have not fully explained to us what you consider to be Nazis.

I would love it if you could just clarify that matter, to a simpleton like me. When you say Nazi, are you referring to the Ukraine’s Jewish president whose grandfather barely survived the Holocaust?

Or were you perhaps referring to the 10 year old school girl Polina, who was murdered on your orders?

Maybe it is the 2 year old Shpak who was murdered during a shelling ordered by you. Was he that Nazi you were referring to? Is that the type of funerals you want to see more in the Ukraine to achieve your goals?

Dear Comrade Putin, if you can’t explain it to me, maybe you can explain it to Oleh,Shpak’s Father? Because he asked “I don’t know if there is a God. What is this all for? For what?”

Dear Comrade Putin, your actions look a lot like that of a nationalised German Austrian, he also said in the 1930’s that he wanted to liberated the people in the Sudeten land and Poland. But he was a Nazi, So are you perhaps a Nazi, Comrade Putin? If so, the only thing for you to do to rid the Ukraine from Nazis is by withdrawing your troops.

Perhaps that isn’t your goal. Perhaps you long to the Russia of the days of yore? Where it was still part of the USSR and maybe you want to rule like Czar Nicholas once did. Maybe you want to become the new USSczaR.

If you ask me that is what you want to be. But people will not remember you as a Czar. They will see you like cowards such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. That is what you real legacy will be.

Is that what you really want? It is not too late yet, you can still change that.

sources

https://www.news.com.au/national/what-is-this-all-for-father-mourns-2yearold-son-killed-in-russian-shelling/video/bae940c1ab46c5291ed2848ba1e2c53b

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/schoolgirl-polina-shot-dead-by-russian-troops-among-at-least-16-children-killed-in-ukraine-invasion-41395376.html

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/from-the-archives-vladimir-putin-the-new-czar-1917416-2022-02-24

Time Magazine Person of the Year.

Here are just some examples of people who were awarded the title “person of the year” by Time magazine. As you can see that doesn’t always equate of having a positive impact in the world.

Above : Pierre Laval, Man of the Year | Jan. 4, 1932. Had been a FrEnch politician and had held the role of prime miniters. During WWII collaborated withe the Nazi regime, while he held positions in the Vichy government. Was executed in 1949 for his role in WWII

Adolph Hitler, Man of the Year | Jan. 2, 1939. There are 2 covers for that edition . There is another one with Hitler himself , displaying a Swastika on his arm.

Joseph Stalin: 1939, 1942

Richard Nixon, Man the Year | Jan. 3, 1972

Deng Xiaoping, Man of the Year 1979 and 1986. the supreme leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1992..

Ayatullah Khomeini, Man of the Year | Jan. 7, 1980. Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

To be honest I don’t know why anyone would think there is anything honorable in receiving the title. I would not want to be associated with any of these men in any way or shape or  form.

 

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Sources

Time Magazine

Vienna 1913-Café Central

Vienna in 1913 was a vibrant cultural city. It was one of Europe’s power houses.Needless to say it attracted people from all over the continent and indeed the world.

Not was it only known for its musical heritage it was also known for its many fine coffee houses. today Viennese coffee is still enjoyed by many coffee drinkers, including myself, for it really is a treat.

One of Vienna’s coffee houses has made a special mark on history. Café Central.It was a place frequented by many of Vienna’s intellectuals and artists. It also had the nickname “Die Schachhochschule” or the Chess High school in English,because of the presence of many chess players who used the first floor for their games.

For a brief period in 1913 it was regularly frequented by guests who made an enormous impact on the planet’s history. In January 1913 , Adolf Hitler,Josip Broz Tito, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky were guests of the Coffee house. There is a very good chance that at one stage they all were there at the same time.

Leon Trotzky was the editor of the newspaper Pravda at the time, he wrote about an encounter he had in the café with a man called Stavros Papadopoulos. He wrote:

“I was sitting at the table,when the door opened with a knock and an unknown man entered.He was short… thin… his greyish-brown skin covered in pockmarks… I saw nothing in his eyes that resembled friendliness.”

Stavros Papadopoulos was not the real name of the man, he had been born as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, but in later life was known as Josef Stalin.

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Source

BBC

 

When Stalin wanted to kill John Wayne

No this is not the title of a movie, but why this never was turned into a movie is beyond me.

Joseph Stalin wanted John Wayne gone so badly he sent two men to pose as FBI agents to take him down.It might come as a surprise that Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, man of steel, and murderer of millions, was quite the movie buff. He had a private theater in each one of his homes,and in his last years, the cinema became not only his favourite entertainment but also a source of political inspiration.

Stalin was so angered by John Wayne’s anti-communism that he plotted to have him murdered. He ordered the KGB to assassinate John Wayne because he considered him a threat to the Soviet Union.

When the Russian filmmaker Sergei Gerasimov attended a peace conference in New York in 1949 he heard about John Wayne and his anti-communist beliefs. When he returned to the Soviet Union he immediately told Stalin about John Wayne.

Wayne had previously clashed with the Communists because of his opinions, even receiving a threatening anonymous letter. When one of his friends advised him to be more cautious, the Duke declared “no goddamn Commie’s gonna frighten me.”

The situation took a decidedly more serious turn, however, when the movie star attracted the attention of the Soviet dictator himself.

The alleged assassination attempt unfolded in the early 1950’s, just as the Communist scare in the United States was starting to peak.

Sources reported that after one of his routine film viewings, Stalin suddenly decided that Wayne was a direct “threat to the cause and should be assassinated.”

American agents also took the threat seriously enough to offer Wayne protection, to which he replied: “I’m not gonna hide away for the rest of my life, this is the land of the free and that’s the way I’m gonna stay.”

According to Wayne’s stuntman and real-life cowboy Yakima Canutt, the FBI foiled at least one assassination attempt with the help of the Duke himself.

After getting word that two KGB agents posing as FBI agents were going to come to the movie studio where Wayne was filming and lure him away, the FBI and the actors decided to outflank them. When the Soviets came into Wayne’s office as expected, the actual FBI agents were hidden in a room next door and were able to burst in and subdue them at gunpoint. The Soviets were so terrified of being sent back to Russia and reporting to Stalin they had failed, that they willingly agreed to provide intelligence to the Americans.

Later, in 1953, Wayne was filming “Hondo” in Mexico when yet another communist cell tried to assassinate him.

The Soviet campaign was canceled after Stalin’s death in 1953 because his successor Nikita Khrushchev was a fan of the film star. In a biography written by Michael Munn it says Krushchev told Wayne in a private meeting in 1958: “That was a decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died, I rescinded that order.”

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Sources

Vintage News

All that is interesting

Happy Birthday Mr Stalin

Don’t worry this is not a blog honouring Joseph Stalin, it is however looking at the relations between Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin on Stalin’s 60th and 61st birthsay.

On December 18 1939 Joseph Stalin received 2 telegrams from the Nazi leadership for his 60th Birthday, One from Hitler another on from Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Below the translated versions of the telegrams

Mr. JOSEPH STALIN,
Moscow.
Please accept my most sincere congratulations on your sixtieth birthday. I take this occasion to tender my best wishes. I wish you personally good health and a happy future for the peoples of the friendly Soviet Union.
ADOLF HITLER

Mr. JOSEPH STALIN,
Moscow.
Remembering the historic hours in the Kremlin which inaugurated the decisive turn in the relations between our two great peoples and thereby created the basis for a lasting friendship between us, I beg us to accept my warmest congratulations on you birthday.
JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Exactly 1 year later on Stalin’s 61st birthday ,Hitler issued Directive No. 21 on the German invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa.

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The death of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin’s oldest son.

Everyone knows Joseph Stalin, but most aren’t familiar with his familial life, particularly his eldest son, Yakov.

The tumultuous relationship between father and son created a story that spanned a difficult youth, the German invasion of the Soviet Union and a Nazi concentration camp.

Yakov was born to Stalin’s first wife, in 1907. He was born in what was at the time Imperial Russia, and his mother died of typhus only a few months after his birth.

Yakov was mostly raised by his other female relatives, his aunts and grandmother. He was encouraged at a young age to go to Moscow to seek out an education.

From his youth onward, Yakov and Stalin did not get along, with Stalin being quite judgmental of his son, looking down on him in almost every way. As a young man, Yakov attempted suicide after a disagreement with his father over Yakov’s Jewish fiancee.

Stalin did not approve of the marriage and after an intense argument, Yakov retired to his bedroom and attempted to shoot himself. However, Yakov survived and was treated for his wounds, but his father was prompted to make remarks on how his son couldn’t even kill himself properly.

Yakov did end up marrying the Jewish girl, a dancer who was already married. He helped her arrange a divorce before marrying her and having two children with her. Afterward, Stalin said that he no longer wanted to have any sort of a relationship with Yakov, as they had nothing in common. He called Yakov a thug and an extortionist.

Yakov joined the Red Army at the outbreak of war in the East in June 1941, serving as a lieutenant in the artillery. On the first day of the war, his father told him to ‘Go and fight’. On 16 July, within a month of the Nazi invasion, Yakov was captured and taken prisoner.

Stalin considered all prisoners as traitors to the motherland and those that surrendered he demonised as ‘malicious deserters’. ‘There are no prisoners of war,’ he once said, ‘only traitors to their homeland’.

Certainly Yakov, by all accounts, felt that he had failed his father. Under interrogation, he admitted that he had tried to shoot himself. His father probably would have preferred it if he had.

Families of PoWs, or deserters, faced the harshest consequences for the failings of their sons or husbands – arrested and exiled. Yakov may have been Stalin’s son but his family were not to be spared. He was married to a Jewish girl, Julia. Stalin had managed to overcome his innate anti-Semitism and grew to be quite fond of his daughter-in-law. Nonetheless, following Yakov’s capture, Julia was arrested, separated from her three-year-old daughter and sent to the gulag. After two years, Stalin sanctioned her release but she remained forever traumatised by the experience.

The Germans made propaganda capital of Yakov’s capture, dropping leaflets in the Soviet Union saying “Do not shed your blood for Stalin! His own son has surrendered! If Stalin’s son has saved himself then you are not obliged to sacrifice yourself either!”

In 1943, Stalin was offered the chance to have his son back. The Germans had been defeated at Stalingrad and their Field Marshal, Friedrich Paulus, was taken prisoner by the Soviets, their highest-ranking capture of the war. The Germans offered a swap – von Paulus for Yakov. Stalin refused, saying, ‘I will not trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant’. As harsh it may seem, Stalin’s reasoning did contain a logic – why should his son be freed when the sons of other Soviet families suffered – ‘what would other fathers say?’

On 14 April 1943, the 36-year-old Yakov died. The Germans maintained they shot him while he was trying to escape. But it is more likely that after two years of incarceration and deprivation, the news of the Katyn massacre was the final straw. Stalin had ordered the murder of 15,000 Polish officers in the woods of Katyn in May 1940.  The discovery of the mass grave in March 1943 was heavily publicised by the Germans. Yakov, who had befriended Polish inmates, was distraught by the news. ‘Look what you bastards did to these men. What kind of people are you?’ said a German officer to him. He died by throwing himself onto an electric fence.