Silence Was Salvation

Book excerpt: Roughly ten million children were victims of political repression in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era, the sons and daughters of peasants, workers, scientists, physicians, and political leaders considered by the regime to be dangerous to the political order. Ten grown victims, who as children suffered banishment, starvation, disease, anti-Semitism, and trauma resulting from their parents’ condemnation and arrest, now freely share their stories. The result is a powerful and moving oral history that will profoundly deepen the reader’s understanding of life in the U.S.S.R. under the despotic reign of Joseph Stalin.