Within the Whirlwind

Ten years of imprisonment in a Soviet Gulag – this was endured by Eugenia Ginzburg, a teacher and writer, as she was swept up in one of Joseph Stalin’s brutal purges in the 1930’s as the dictator tightened his grip on the Soviet Union. Ginzburg survived and lived to tell about it. Though most Americans are familiar with the Nazi Holocaust, few are aware of similar purges that took place in other countries, such as the mass annihilation of millions of Soviet citizens as a result of Joseph Stalin’s intense desire to eliminate would-be political enemies. Thanks to the survivors, such as Ginzburg, there is a wealth of information and first-hand accounts of what entailed life in the Soviet Union’s version of a concentration camp, and what it took to survive.