• ping@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    My former boss was in a gulag for most of his teens. He was not paid and to this day he has no idea what crime he was convicted of.

    Maybe your former boss was bullshitting you. Maybe he knew precisely why he was in prison, but didn’t want to admit his crimes to his employees. It’s pretty common for ex-cons to falsely claim innocence.

    He just knows he served time and was targeted by guards because he was Jewish and the Soviets were very bigoted.

    There were many prominent Jews in the Bolshevik revolution, and Jews continued to be active members of the Communist Party, in soviets, and in the Politburo.

    • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      My degree is in the downfall if the USSR. I have spent a lot of time reading accounts of prisoners. Many never knew because they were not present at their trial.

      He has the numbers tattooed on his arm. I know people who knew him in Belarus that I knew separate of him who talked about it.

      There were prominent Jews in the politburo. There was also a fuckload of antisemitism as anyone who lived in the USSR could tell you. The USSR was just as racist as every other European nation.