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View Full Version : Forty-five things I learned in the Gulag


Averageman
07-08-18, 14:23
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/06/12/forty-five-things-i-learned-in-the-gulag/

For fifteen years the writer Varlam Shalamov was imprisoned in the Gulag for participating in “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities.” He endured six of those years enslaved in the gold mines of Kolyma, one of the coldest and most hostile places on earth. While he was awaiting sentencing, one of his short stories was published in a journal called Literary Contemporary. He was released in 1951, and from 1954 to 1973 he worked on Kolyma Stories, a masterpiece of Soviet dissident writing that has been newly translated into English and published by New York Review Books Classics this week. Shalamov claimed not to have learned anything in Kolyma, except how to wheel a loaded barrow. But one of his fragmentary writings, dated 1961, tells us more.

An interesting read to say the least.
Campbell
07-08-18, 15:15
Thanks for the link,interesting indeed.
SteyrAUG
07-08-18, 16:10
This is why I can never take the "Fema camps" crowd seriously. They have no understanding of how bad things can get and they don't appreciate that it probably cannot happen here.

The internment of the Japanese was not even close to what the Germans and the Russians did, it was wrong and we lumped the innocent in with the guilty but on our worst day we were still better than the best day in Russia or Germany.
The_War_Wagon
07-08-18, 17:01
This is why I can never take the "Fema camps" crowd seriously. They have no understanding of how bad things can get and they don't appreciate that it probably cannot happen here.

FEMA round-up camp, correct.

FEMA RESCUE camp?! I STILL want NO part of!


http://bushrewrite.americanbridge.org/app/uploads/sites/12/dome.png

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201008/r627467_4252930.jpg
SeriousStudent
07-08-18, 18:56
Ever read Night, by Elie Wiesel?
SteyrAUG
07-08-18, 19:43
FEMA round-up camp, correct.

FEMA RESCUE camp?! I STILL want NO part of!



Yes, I meant the "round us up and put us in FEMA camps" conspiracy stuff. As for rescue, I'd rather take my chances at a Salvation Army rescue center or just try and rescue myself.
Averageman
07-08-18, 20:52
Ever read Night, by Elie Wiesel?
I read the Cliff Notes on line, impressive.
HardToHandle
07-08-18, 21:06
This is why I can never take the "Fema camps" crowd seriously. They have no understanding of how bad things can get and they don't appreciate that it probably cannot happen here.

The internment of the Japanese was not even close to what the Germans and the Russians did, it was wrong and we lumped the innocent in with the guilty but on our worst day we were still better than the best day in Russia or Germany.


FEMA round-up camp, correct.

FEMA RESCUE camp?! I STILL want NO part of!


http://bushrewrite.americanbridge.org/app/uploads/sites/12/dome.png

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201008/r627467_4252930.jpg

Not to be pendantic, but the Super Dome was a local government shelter. That local shelter was opened after the Democratic Governor declined an offer of FEMA assistance made by President George W. Bush.

I am totally with Steyr... Manazar, Wounded Knee, all of Oklahoma were simply not on the scale of the Gulags nor Organization Todt. It is popular in some circles to make the allusions, but different moral culpability.
Buckaroo
07-08-18, 21:36
Ever read Night, by Elie Wiesel?She came to our local HS every year.
Kids learned a lot!

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Averageman
07-08-18, 22:41
I am totally with Steyr... Manazar, Wounded Knee, all of Oklahoma were simply not on the scale of the Gulags nor Organization Todt. It is popular in some circles to make the allusions, but different moral culpability.
Everyone who has read a bit, traveled a bit, decided to educate themselves a bit knows this is true.
This is what ruins every argument that devolves in to calling someone a fascist or a nazi.
Once you've become enlightened on the subject, you know better and the whole of their argument suddenly takes on the smell of BS.
All credibility is lost and now that you've reached this level of crap, screaming and throwing things may well soon follow.
It makes some evil part of me wish I could force them to personally experience just one short hour of the true horrors that they allow to so casually roll out of their stupid mouths.
AKDoug
07-08-18, 23:09
She came to our local HS every year.
Kids learned a lot!

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

He... Eliezer
Buckaroo
07-08-18, 23:20
He... EliezerYep, wrong person

She: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mozes_Kor

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AKDoug
07-08-18, 23:33
Yep, wrong person

She: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mozes_Kor

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Cool. Sounds like an educational experience that I wish I could have gotten in school.
JoshNC
07-09-18, 06:51
She came to our local HS every year.
Kids learned a lot!

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Elie Weizel was a man. Sadly, he was a vocal proponent of gun control, which is rather absurd given his history.
Moose-Knuckle
07-10-18, 02:09
They have no understanding of how bad things can get and they don't appreciate that it probably cannot happen here.

Doesn't mean someone won't try one day . . .

From Obama's mentor's terror cell no less:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2pMkkXIDrM