Surviving Two Plagues (eBook, ePUB)

In the 1930s, a young boy from a "kulak" family in Ukraine struggles to survive one of history‘s deadliest faminesthe Holodomor of 193233, inflicted by Stalin‘s regime on the Ukrainian peasantry. He lives like an orphan while his parents are still alive, watching the ruthless regime tear his loved ones from his life, one by one. Through sheer will and a stroke of luck, he escapes death while millions around him perish, forging a resilience that will carry him through even darker times ahead.A decade later, war consumes his homeland. As Nazi forces occupy Ukraine during World War II, the boynow a young manis torn from his home and deported to brutal labor camps in Nazi Germany. He endures inhumane conditions, witnesses unspeakable cruelty, and clings to the fragile hope of one day seeing his family again. Even in this living nightmare, he holds fast to his human dignity, forging bonds with others determined to survive. He attempts escape twicesucceeding only the second time. When liberation finally comes, it is a bittersweet freedom for a young man deeply scarred by trauma and loss.Returning to Soviet-controlled Ukraine, he finds peace, however elusive. Soviet victory brings a new form of oppression: memories of the famine are silenced, and survivors of Nazi camps are met not with compassion but with suspicion. He is forced to live under a regime that demands silence, loyalty, and forgetfulnessat the cost of truth. And yet, despite the fear and repression that surround him, he refuses to let his spirit be broken.The author of this memoir lived a long life and wrote down his experiences in his final years. Now, nearly a lifetime later, as history echoes back with chilling familiarity, the tragic story of his homelandonce devastated by the Bolsheviksresonates anew amid the renewed invasion of Ukraine. Today‘s Russia wages war under resurrected Soviet symbols, seeking to crush the freedoms his generation was stripped of.The current war in Ukraine brings haunting echoes of his past: a nation under siege, families uprooted, and a people once again fighting for survival.Surviving Two Plagues is a powerful testament to the indomitable human spirit, the necessity of preserving historical memory, and the enduring hope for justice and peaceeven in the face of humanity‘s darkest chapters.