CHAPTER 1

STALIN—THE FOCUS OFCONCENTRATED EVIL

For many in Eastern Europe, the allure of communism lives on

As the jet plane taxied down the runway of Edmonton'sInternational Airport in preparation for our flight to Ukraine, Ihad a lot on my mind. This was confirmed when a security agent rushedup to me saying, "Sir, your passport. You forgot your passport!"

Sponsored by the Government of Canada, I was on an internationalassignment to provide consulting services to a small family-search firmin Lviv, Ukraine. Knowing that the flight time to Europe would be long,I had plenty of time to think about genealogy and the meaning of family.But, my thoughts were not about family alone; they were also aboutPoland. After all, May 1, 2004 was quickly approaching and that wouldbe the day upon which Poland, a former Eastern Bloc Country, wouldjoin the European Union.

Like thousands of others, my father left Poland in 1928 for a farawayland called Canada, a land that he knew very little about. My motherfollowed in 1931. But, they were among the lucky ones. They came tothis great land on their own volition and not as a result of family conflictor repressive government policies. Extenuating circumstances existed fortheir decision—poverty and lack of employment opportunities amongthem.

Knowing that my upcoming assignment in Ukraine would focus onfamily searches and genealogy, my thoughts were not so much aboutthe dispersion of members of my family within Europe or Westerndemocracies, but rather with those who were taken against their will towhat one survivor characterized as 'the end of the earth.' To this survivorand to millions of others, this place, which evokes visions of depravityand terror, is Siberia. It is here that a vast network of labour campswas set up across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union by JosefStalin. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as Ithought about the Gulag and the belief expressed by my father that theKozlov family was swallowed by its vastness. Why? That question wasuppermost in my mind.

Flying over the northern reaches of Canada on the first leg ofmy journey, I thought about all of those individuals and families I hadinterviewed, several of whom tearfully told me of the impact of punitivegovernment policies upon their families. Many were forcibly movedfrom a village in which they had lived for generations to a new locationwithout even having time to say goodbye to their family or their friends.Just a few days earlier it was a long-time resident of Edmonton who saidto me, "Imagine the stress and horror of suddenly being removed fromyour home in the middle of the night to a place called Siberia, never tobe heard from again."

Another interviewee, upon reflecting about the Gulag, had this tosay, "Deportations were not only to the Gulag. My family was forciblymoved from one location in Poland to another just because they wereethnic Ukrainians!" Carried out under the code name Operation Vistula,this particular program came on the heels of Soviet-enforced populationexchanges between Poland and Soviet Ukraine at the end of World WarII. My Aunt Anna, whose family had been touched by this punitivegovernment policy, characterized the program as a form of ethniccleansing. However, this, in her view, paled in comparison to the pain feltby those individuals and families who were suddenly deported to Siberia.

As the plane descended in preparation for a landing in Lviv, Ukraine,I once again recalled the words of my father who, so many years agoremarked, "I wonder what happened to my cousin Alexei Kozlov andhis family? Did any member of that family survive their banishment toSiberia?"

This question had been on my mind the previous night when thestars, moon, and even the planets all seemed visible to the naked eye.The natural light sources in the night sky seemed to light up the wholesky. I thought about how the farmers of Ukraine would use the state ofthe night sky as a calendar to determine when to...