From Hell to Paradise 6x9 - Taschenbuch

This autobiographical book traces back the remarkable life of GULAG survivor and historian Roman Brackman. Roman was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1931. In 1935 his father, an engineer, was imprisoned in Gulag camp near Dmitrov. As a boy Roman stayed for weeks with his father in the camp’s barracks and saw the barb wire, watch towers and columns of prisoners going to and from work. He grew up during the Great Purges when many of his relatives were arrested and perished. He graduated from high school in 1948 and enrolled in the Moscow Oriental Institute, Arabic division, where for two school years he set next to Evgeny Primakov, one of the future Russian Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers. In 1949 Roman and two of his school friends tried to escape from the Soviet Union by swimming from the Black Sea port Batumi to Turkey. They were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Special Political prison camps. Roman was sent to Norylsk Gulag where he took an active part in prisoners’ uprising in the summer of 1953. Roman’s co-defendants Vitaly Svechinsky and Mikhail Margulis were sent to other Siberian camps. All of them survived five years imprisonment and were released in 1955 in the first post-Stalin amnesty. In 1959 Roman managed to leave the Soviet Union legally - his wife was a Polish citizen. In 1962 he, his wife and their two sons immigrated to the United States. In 1965 Roman graduated from City College of New York with bachelor degree in science and in 1980 he received the doctorate degree in history from New York University. During Carter-Reagan election campaign in 1979-1980 Roman published his first book “Jimmy Carter Provocateur-in-Chief.” His book “The Secret File of Joseph Stalin - A Hidden Life” was published in 2001 in London and translated to several languages, including Russian. His book “Israel at High Noon” was published in 2006 in New York. In 2010 Roman published "Watergate and Deep Throat Hoax" - a book about Nixon Presidency during the Watergate scandal and the role played by John Dean. His book "First Jewish President", published in 2012, examines the support extended by Chicago Jewish community to the yo