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Man is Wolf to Man - Surviving the Gulag (Paperback, Revised ed.) Loot Price: R1,011
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Man is Wolf to Man - Surviving the Gulag (Paperback, Revised ed.): Janusz Bardach, Kathleen Gleeson

Man is Wolf to Man - Surviving the Gulag (Paperback, Revised ed.)

Janusz Bardach, Kathleen Gleeson; Foreword by Adam Hochschild

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Loot Price R1,011 Discovery Miles 10 110 | Repayment Terms: R95 pm x 12*

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No matter how often one reads of life in the Gulag - and this is one of the best accounts - one is still chilled by the extent of man's capacity for evil. This account by Bardach, now a surgeon at the University of Iowa, is, however, more nuanced, though there is no lack of brutality in this story of how he survived. A Polish Jew who admired the Soviet Union and wanted to fight for social justice, he was conscripted into the Red Army when it overran his area of Poland after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact carved up the country. He appeared before a drumhead court-martial for losing his tank after the Germans attacked Russia in 1941 and was sentenced to ten years in the camps. For several weeks he crossed the Soviet Union in a closed cattle-truck, from which he escaped, and upon recapture he was almost beaten to death, being saved only by an officer who did not want the bureaucratic hassle of dealing with a death certificate. Among his worst experiences were his time in the mines, with the bitter cold, the pitiful rations, and the relentless work; and the long trip by sea to the Kolyma Peninsula, during which the male prisoners broke into the women's hold and literally raped many of them to death. And yet through it all, he says, it was his "fate to meet people who not only saved my life but also showed me how to remain sensitive," people like Dr. Piasetsky, who pretended to believe that he had been a medical student, and let him stay as a hospital assistant, which saved him from the gold mines. To survive the Gulag you needed strength and luck, and Bardach had a good measure of both, but it is our good fortune that in doing so he has contributed to our knowledge of the human condition. (Kirkus Reviews)
From the book: 'The pit I was ordered to dig had the precise dimensions of a casket. The NKVD officer carefully designed it. He measured my size with a stick, made lines on the forest floor, and told me to dig. He wanted to make sure I'd fit well inside'. In 1941 Janusz Bardach's death sentence was commuted to ten years' hard labor and he was sent to Kolyma - the harshest, coldest, and most deadly prison in Joseph Stalin's labor camp system - the Siberia of Siberias. The only English-language memoir since the fall of communism to chronicle the atrocities committed during the Stalinist regime, Bardach's gripping testimony explores the darkest corners of the human condition at the same time that it documents the tyranny of Stalin's reign, equal only to that of Hitler. With breathtaking immediacy, a riveting eye for detail, and a humanity that permeates the events and landscapes he describes, Bardach recounts the extraordinary story of this nearly inconceivable world. The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality - from a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of the gulag existence - is a testament to human endurance under the most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a vital affirmation of what it means to be human.

General

Imprint: University of California Press
Country of origin: United States
Release date: September 1999
First published: September 1999
Authors: Janusz Bardach • Kathleen Gleeson
Foreword by: Adam Hochschild
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 28mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - Trade
Pages: 408
Edition: Revised ed.
ISBN-13: 978-0-520-22152-9
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution > General
Books > Biography > General
LSN: 0-520-22152-4
Barcode: 9780520221529

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