By Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska On April 13, 1943, the whole world heard about the crime committed by the Soviets. On that day, the Germans announced the discovery of the graves of Polish officers in the forest near Katyn. Three years earlier, in the spring of 1940, nearly 22,000 prisoners of war captured after the Red Army’s […]

Read More

By Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska Patarei Prison, located in Tallinn, Estonia, holds a deeply painful place in the history of political repression. Originally built as a fortress in the 19th century, this imposing structure became infamous for its use as a prison by both Nazi and Soviet regimes. In particular, under Soviet occupation, it became a symbol […]

Read More

Book review: Barbara Skarga, ‘’After the liberation. Notes on the Gulag’’, 1944-1956 (Amsterdam, 2022) ISBN 9789403107226; 432 pp., €34.99 by Patrick van Schie In May, the Netherlands and Europe invariably look back at the end of the Second World War. First the stories about the horrors of the time under National Socialism, followed by the […]

Read More

Disclosures by an Experience Expert in 1946-47: Victor Kravchenko’s I Chose Freedom   By Patrick van Schie   In April 1944, a senior official from the Soviet Union’s “trade delegation” defected to the United States. Victor Kravchenko, an engineer, was tasked with Lend Lease deliveries during World War II to the Soviet Union – that […]

Read More