My paternal grandfather’s cousin, Yechezkel Pulerevitch, was imprisoned in a Soviet concentration camp for seventeen years for the “crime” of being a Zionist.

After his release, he was eventually alloweed to emigrate to Israel, where he organized former Soviet prisoners to oppose the communist regime and, specifically, its treatment of Jews. That helped create a broader human rights movement that eventually posed a serious threat to the Soviet system.

Yechezkel Pulerevitch (Source: Jerusalem Post)

In 1973, he came to Washington to meet Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) and advocate for the passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment–which former dissident Natan Sharansky has called the “first nail in the coffin of the Soviet dictatorship.”

In 1974, Pulerevitch published a memoir of his experiences in the Gulag, entitled Short Stories of the Long Death. The foreword was written by future Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and the book appeared in several languages.

One story in particular recalls a Hanukkah celebrated in the concentration camp, in the most difficult of circumstances. Its message of resistance is appropriate to the themes of the holiday–now on its eighth and final night–and for a generation that has yet to understand the folly of socialism or to memorialize the horrors of the communist system.

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A Hanukkah Candle in the Concentration Camp

by

Yechezkel Pulerevitch

Where have I seen that face? – I wondered, staring at the old man opposite me, a prisoner with gaunt features and blue-green eyes with a dreamy faraway expression. All around us – Russian prisoners in tattered clothing, bickering at the top of their voices and swearing a blue streak. The old man’s clothing was also in rags. But the face, the face… (more…)

The loud clanging alarm clock went off promptly at 6:00 a.m. as it always did. I hopped off my government-issue twin mattress right away. As an unmarried single dweller, I’m not permitted to own a queen-size mattress, and concealing a king-sizer could even get me a 90-day jail stint if some overzealous bureaucrat were to come knocking. No, for me the twin-size was deemed sufficient “nocturnal  replenishment space” (governmentese for “mattress”). The government didn’t seem to mind that at 6’4” I find my allotted replenishment space a tad confining.

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (opening of 1970 Caspar Wrede film)

Anyway, I leapt right into action. Not like in the good old pre-2013 days when I’d take my sweet time and listen to my favorite morning talk radio show under the cozy covers. Unfortunately, ever since the Obama administration’s Broadcast Airwaves Czar reinstituted The Fairness Act in August of 2012, the talk radio shows one by one all faded from the airwaves. Talk radio was simply no longer commercially viable once the stations had to counterbalance with unprofitable Air America-style programming. Well, if it gets me out of bed and becoming a productive member of the labor force one hour sooner, I suppose that’s for the better. As Mr. and Mrs. Obama have reminded me on many occasions, it’s a shared sacrifice. And I know they’re shouldering their portion of the burden just like me.  I’m sure their Nocturnal Replenishment Space is only a Queen.

Solzhenitsyn in the gulag

Today was the first day of the month, which meant I had to get to the Mortgage Relief Assistance Office by 7:30 if I wanted to get a good spot in line for my subsidy. Since that MRA check covers 90% of my mortgage payment, I’m not about to pass it up—even though I could easily make the payment myself from money I squirreled away before the Equity in Compensation Act of 2012 reduced my handsome programmer’s salary by two-thirds. I guess all those years I spent studying the intricacies of digital architecture were not the wise investment in my future I once thought.

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To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a group of students at Washington University in St. Louis chose to stand up to the tyranny of socialism and bring awareness to its consequences.

The students erected a Soviet gulag on the quad of the University to vividly display the ultimate “solution” to dissidence in socialist societies sparking campus intrigue, discussion, and debate.  Although an officer initially arrived on the scene and found everything was peaceful, undercover video reveals smarmy Washington University administrators continuing to press and make excuses to shut the fake-Gulag down.It took the bureaucracy hours to find an obscure policy to use against the students.

The group responsible has plans to make more gulag demonstrations on campuses around the country.

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Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall was breached and Soviet communism, at long last, entered its death spiral.

After claiming approximately 100 million victims in the 20th century,communism was dismissed to the ash heap of history. But those who suffered under its boot heel have largely been confined to the history books when not forgotten altogether.

Author and historian Lee Edwards set out to correct this oversight with the creation of the Victims of Communism memorial and online museum, dedicated to those who perished because of Communist regimes between 1917 and 1989.

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