Revealing the fate of Czechoslovaks in the gulags
Ukrainian historian Anna Khlebina, Czech historian Adam Hradilek, and their team are searching for the fate of Czechoslovaks in the gulags. They bring some of that history to life in Gulag and Czechoslovakia: War, the first book in a four-part series.
Prior to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, historians also conducted research in Russia, where they worked with, among others, the renowned Memorial organization, which was later disbanded by the Kremlin. Research was fundamentally affected by the pandemic and then by the full-scale war that Russia started in 2022.
According to researchers, the Ukrainian authorities and historians have been very helpful. Many Ukrainian archives, such as those in Kyiv, are now closed for security reasons.
Some archives were destroyed during the war, many Ukrainian archivists went to the front, and Russian occupiers confiscated documents about Soviet repression, historians recall.
But fortunately, by 2022, when the Russians invaded Ukraine, the Prague research team already had most of the files on persecuted Czechoslovak citizens in digital form. They have created an online archive of them, which is now partially accessible.
Their book Gulag and Czechoslovakia: War is the first in a planned four-part series published by the institute in cooperation with the academy. Czech historian Adam Hradilek, who works at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, touches on its contents:
“It focuses on the period of the most extensive repression against our compatriots and citizens. Shortly after the occupation and breakup of Czechoslovakia, the most endangered citizens tried to escape the Nazi regime. From the Czech lands, these were mainly people of Jewish origin, political and leftist activists, and Communists who fled to Poland and then further east, ending up in the Soviet Union. Several thousand young people also escaped from occupied Carpathian Ruthenia to avoid serving in the occupying Hungarian army.”
Their book covers how these refugees' lives intersected with those of others already imprisoned in the gulag during the previous period of the Great Terror, which had sentenced hundreds of thousands of Czech compatriots either to death or to labor camps.
The children who disappeared
While studying the files, the researchers came across the previously unknown fate of children taken from their compatriots imprisoned in the Soviet Union.
The book also highlights the fate of imprisoned parents whose children were taken away from them and raised by the Soviet authorities. A child up to 18 months could stay with their mother in prison, a child up to the age of 14 would be sent to an educational institution, and from the age of 16, full criminal responsibility was applicable.
Juveniles under the age of 17 among the refugees made up about eight percent, meaning around 400 individuals were documented; younger children were not even included.
An example of the removal of refugee children from Czechoslovakia is the story of Anna Hrycova, her husband, and their young son. After crossing the border, they were all imprisoned in Ivano-Frankivsk, and within the first few days, her one-year-old son was taken away from her.
‘Grateful’ Soviet citizens
Anna stayed in prison for another year, had another child there, and then was sent to the gulag with him. In the 1990s, she asked for help to find her son. However, she was unsuccessful in her request. Children often did not want to report to their parents because of the indoctrination of the authorities.
"The Soviet authorities raised such children to be loyal, grateful Soviet citizens. They told them that they had lost their safe home because of their parents, and now they had to be grateful to the Soviet Union for food, a roof over their heads, and school."
Chlebina continued that any Czech could have been condemned for several reasons just for being Czech. "That's kind of the main conclusion we can draw from the research—at that moment, the biggest mistake was getting into the Soviet Union," she concluded.
The second volume in the four-part series on the history of repression against Czechoslovaks in the Soviet Union focuses on the Great Terror, the third covers early Soviet repression, and the final one addresses the postwar period.
The Great Terror refers to the period from 1937 to 1938, during which between seven and eight hundred thousand people were executed. Millions more were imprisoned. This wave of repression also affected the Czech minority in the USSR, which had around 27,000 members. The NKVD worked under quotas and would often request increases. Any Czech could be targeted simply for being Czech—whether due to foreign contacts, anti-Soviet organizations, or family background.
