Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead - Historical Blog.: July 2006

Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead.

Home

About the Film

Trailer

Historical Blog

About the Book

Screenings and Festivals

Tuesday, 25 July 2006

There were countless victims of the Russian gulags, and indeed of the German concentration camps. Some estimates suggest that over 6 Million people died in the German camps during World War 2, while the Russian gulags and terror claimed, it is estimated, over 10 million lives and saw millions of people imprisoned in terrible conditions.

If you or your family were affected by these events and you feel able to share your experiences then please feel free to add a comment to this post.

We would also welcome your views and comments on the coverage that the film Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead will give to these events.

Those that lost their lives suffered a terrible fate while the survivors carry the scars of their imprisonment with them. Families have suffered from sorrow and loss - the trauma of these terrible events is still fresh in many people’s minds.

Developing This Site

I would just like to say that working on the development of this site has been one of the most difficult projects I have ever worked on...not for any technical reason, but because of the obvious human suffering that becomes apparent when any research is carried out on the subjects surrounding the film.
In order to write about the gulags and concentration camp I have had to research the darker parts of mankind’s recent history. This left me thinking - do others share the same difficulty dealing with the Holocaust and the oppression in Russia? Is this a subject that you feel should be discussed? How should the film deal with these issues?

I look forward to your comments.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Suggested Reading

Garri S. Urban: Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead This is the true and striking story by a Jewish doctor of his struggle for survival when caught in 1939 between the evils of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia. After facing death from frontier patrols, a firing squad and torture, Urban arrives at a position of considerable power in Soviet society in a medical post. He risks his life again, fighting epidemics. These fascinating memoirs give a very rare glimpse of the Soviet Union in wartime, particularly into the exotic life of the Moiscow elite, where beautiful women, diplomats and spies mingled at parties and sex was used as a method of recruiting agents.
Ruth Kluger: Landscape of Memory - a Holocaust Girlhood Remembered Ruth Kluger is one of the child-survivors of the Holocaust. In 1942 at the age of 11, she was deported to the Nazi "family camp" Theresienstadt with her mother. They would move to two other camps before the war ended. This book is the story of Ruth's life. Of a childhood spent in the nazi camps and her refusal to forget the past as an adult in America. Not erasing a single detail, not even the inconvienient ones, she writes frankly about the troubled relationship with her mother even through their years of internment and her determination not to forgive and absolve the past.
Sir Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust A very thorough account of the experience of the Jews of Europe during World War II. This title gives a virtual day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race.
Anne Applebaum: Gulag The Pulitzer Prize winning narrative of the origins and development of the Soviet concentration camps. Based on archives, interviews and new research the book explains the role that the camps played in the Soviet political and economic system.
Jean-Francois Steiner: Treblinka This is without a doubt one of the better books about the death camps. You will become intimately acquainted with Treblinka and the Nazis who ran it. Steiner's book is well-written and does justice to the horror.
Richard Overy: Russia's War The astounding events of 1941-45 in which the Soviet Union, after initial catastrophes, destroyed Hitler's Third Reich and shaped European history for the next fifty years.
Willy Peter Reese: A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944 The haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead.
Slavomir Rawicz: The Long Walk The story of a young Polish cavalry officer who was arrested by the Russians, tortured and sentenced to 25 years forced labour. His escape and journey across the Gobi desert to Tibet and freedom.
Rodric Braithwaite: Moscow 1941 Sunday Times review - ‘a wide-ranging and excellent account...Braithwaite never shirks the terrible truths'.

Suggested Films

©2007 Cyclops Vision, All Rights Reserved | Terms of Use | Accessibility Statement | Site Map