Surviving freedom : after the Gulag / Janusz Bardach and Kathleen Gleeson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bardach, Janusz.

Contributor:

Gleeson, Kathleen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Soviet Union--Biography.

Jews.

Jews, Polish--Soviet Union--Biography.

Jews, Polish.

Plastic surgeons--Soviet Union--Biography.

Plastic surgeons.

Political prisoners--Soviet Union--Biography.

Political prisoners.

Bardach, Janusz.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (295 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1941, as a Red Army soldier fighting the Nazis on the Belarussian front, Janusz Bardach was arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to ten years of hard labor. Twenty-two years old, he had committed no crime. He was one of millions swept up in the reign of terror that Stalin perpetrated on his own people. In the critically acclaimed Man Is Wolf to Man, Bardach recounted his horrific experiences in the Kolyma labor camps in northeastern Siberia, the deadliest camps in Stalin's gulag system. In this sequel Bardach picks up the narrative in March 1946, when he was released. He traces his thousand-mile journey from the northeastern Siberian gold mines to Moscow in the period after the war, when the country was still in turmoil. He chronicles his reunion with his brother, a high-ranking diplomat in the Polish embassy in Moscow; his experiences as a medical student in the Stalinist Soviet Union; and his trip back to his hometown, where he confronts the shattering realization of the toll the war has taken, including the deaths of his wife, parents, and sister. In a trenchant exploration of loss, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and existential loneliness, Bardach plumbs his ordeal with honesty and compassion, affording a literary window into the soul of a Stalinist gulag survivor. Surviving Freedom is his moving account of how he rebuilt his life after tremendous hardship and personal loss. It is also a unique portrait of postwar Stalinist Moscow as seen through the eyes of a person who is both an insider and outsider. Bardach's journey from prisoner back to citizen and from labor camp to freedom is an inspiring tale of the universal human story of suffering and recovery.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

1. VIEW FROM THE EMBASSY WINDOW

2. WAITING FOR TOMORROW

3. JOURNEY TO THE PAST

4. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

5. FARNA STREET

6. NO MAN'S LAND

7. LYING AND CHEATING

8. GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD

9. MARCHING ON RED SQUARE

10. FIRST FINAL EXAMS

11. POSTWAR POLAND

12. FAMILY OF FRIENDS

13. SUMMER 1947

14. FINDING MY WAY

15. ENEMIES EVERYWHERE

16. COMING INTO MY OWN

17. ASPIRANTURA

18. LOWER THAN GRASS, QUIETER THAN STILL WATER

19. THE END OF TERROR

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612759192

9781282759190

1282759191

9780520929845

0520929845

9781597349260

1597349267

OCLC:

475933822