On Tuesday, March 8, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) co-hosted a panel discussion with the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley and Human Events in Santa Clara, CA. The panel featured five dissidents who have lived under tyrannical regimes and focused on understanding the life of a political dissident. The five-person panel was comprised of people who have lived under totalitarianism in Cuba, the former Czechoslovakia, the former East Germany, the former Soviet Union, and Vietnam.
Panel members shared their stories of life under communist oppression, their efforts to resist, some of which include resulting prison internment, along with their warnings to today’s Americans.
An excellent recap of the event was written by Human Events here.
Speakers
Tatiana Menaker was born in the city of Leningrad, Soviet Union and received a MA in Marxist-Leninist Philosophy (the only philosophy allowed) from Leningrad University. After graduation, Tatiana started to write for the first underground Christian feminist magazine in the Soviet Union known as “The Women of Russia.” Tatiana, along with all the other writers for the magazine, were eventually arrested by the state. Tatiana’s family application to emigrate from the Soviet Union was rejected and she became a “refusenik” – a special term for people who applied to leave the Soviet Union, thus announcing their disloyalty. Eventually, she and her husband both escaped the Soviet Union. Tatiana arrived in New York and later became a student at San Francisco State University where she wrote her first article in English on the Marxist zealotry she encountered on her college campus.
Peter Palecek was born in Czechoslovakia in 1939 – the same year Nazi Germany seized control of the country. In September of 1942, Peter’s mother was taken by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Peter, just 2 at the time his mother was taken, was rushed to safety by friends. Eventually, his mother returned home in 1945. But they were trading one nightmare – Nazi rule – for another – Communist rule. After a coup brought the communists to power in Czechoslovakia, Peter’s father was arrested by the new communist regime, kept in solitary confinement for 14 months and tortured daily for three years before being sentenced to 13 years of hard labor in the gulags. During his 21 years in Czechoslovakia, Peter courageously spoke out against communism. Four times he was expelled from schools. After graduation, the regime ordered Peter to work as a laborer under communist party guidance in a heavy-duty transformer assembly plant for two years. Peter was constantly subjected to surveillance and harassment by the communist regime for his opposition to communism.
Peter Wolf was forced to learn Russian and accept Communist ideologies as a youth in East Germany. He and his mother were labeled traitors of the State but they managed a daring escape from East Germany on Christmas Eve 1959. They briefly settled in West Germany and then took a 10-day ocean voyage to immigrate to America. Peter visited “East Germany” 50 years after his escape as a member of a delegation led by Michael Reagan (son of President Ronald Reagan) to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were emotional and unexpected reunions between Peter, other fugitives and his former classmates in East Germany. A book has been written about Peter’s life: “Because I Can” by Paul W. Cooper (a renowned author and screenwriter)
Sutton Van Vo was born in South Vietnam in 1937. Sutton, a graduate of the US Army Engineers School in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, rose to the rank of Major in the South Vietnamese Army. Sutton was wounded in combat three times during the Vietnamese war. After the fall of South Vietnam, Sutton was imprisoned for 13 years by the Communist government. Sutton was held in five different communist prisons in north and south Vietnam.
Frank de Varona is an educator, historian, journalist, and internationally known expert on Hispanic contributions to America, politics, economics, foreign affairs, and national security issues. Frank was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1943. He came to study at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida when he was 14 and graduated in 1960. At the age of 17, he participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to eradicate communism in Cuba. After spending two years in prison, where he was tortured along with other prisoners of war, he returned to U. S. where he earned a B.A. in political science and economics, a Certificate in Latin American Studies, a Master’s in social studies, and a Specialist in Educational Administration. He is married and has a daughter and a grandson. Frank de Varona worked as an escort Spanish-English interpreter in the Department of State in 1966 and 1968. Professor de Varona had a successful 38-year career in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a social studies teacher; adult education coordinator; assistant principal; principal of an adult education center, middle school, and high school; region superintendent, associate superintendent of instruction; and interim deputy superintendent of schools. He served as associate professor of social studies in at Florida International University for seven years. Professor de Varona has written 28 books and over 500 articles in newspapers, magazines, and several websites.
(Moderator) Brent Hamachek is Managing Editor of Human Events.
Event Recording
https://humanevents.com/2022/03/30/five-victims-of-communism-share-stories-and-warnings/
