What I read: Gulag -A History

I finished Anne Applebaum's monumental Gulag: a History today . . .
Amongst Lubavitchers, the gulag is famous . . .
Yet to the world at large, Soviet atrocities remain -to a larger extent- unknown.
From a Chabad perspective, while the book on glosses over the Jewish aspect -the ЕвСекция,Yevsektsiya, Jewish division of the Soviet Party is, much the chagrin of the average
Yeshivah student, not mentioned . . . yet when seen in the light of the 20
million or so people processed through the Gulag system the omission is
understandable.
-As a note, the truth is that Beis Reishis . . . that everything that happens is for Am Yisroel and there were taka kitrugim -the fact that Soviets would set up a division to hound and murder
Religious Jews is proof to such . . . this besides the fact that
Communism was admittedly anti-Semitic (Something the book does discuss).

What is interesting, however, is the new light it sheds on existing Gulag memoirs from amongst our numbers . . .










The history of the Gulag is brought vividly to life by Applebaum (who
avoids becoming lost in the forest of facts and number crunching, and
instead brings to life the soul of the system and those who lived
through it) and provides the perspective and back history in which
to view our own works.

Pictures of Thought from the Gulag: