A true and harrowing story, Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead is a valuable legacy of historical fact, available to all as both book and film. This site has been set up to provide information on this new independent documentary film based on the life of Garri S. Urban, an extraordinary man who experienced extreme hardships in the gulags of Stalin's Russia. He wrote in his own words from his own memories about his experiences in a vital, fascinating and enthralling book, which is almost impossible to put down. From the first invasion of the German forces into his homeland in 1939, the story follows Garri's courage in the face of adversity, torture, separation from his loved ones, imprisonment and finally, one of the most daring escapes ever to be documented.
His story illustrates the struggle against the oppression of Stalin's Soviet state at the height of its powers and the will to survive that is so often found in mankind, even at the very darkest times.
The film encapsulates the life of a remarkable man and provides an opportunity for the lessons he learnt to be shared. In addition to providing information about Garri Urban and the life he lived, we will in parallel be chronicling the journey of this documentary. Garri left a massive and important legacy that thanks to his own memoirs and his son's film, will never be forgotten. When he died in 2004, Garri's passing was noted by the world's media, a significant testament to the important role that he played in the lives of not only his loved ones, but also in the broader historical sense.
We would love your input, your views, your own family memories and experiences. You can help to develop the film. To say thank you we will provide you with the inside track on the film's development, pre-release clips, interviews, tickets and the chance to win some mementoes from the film.
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Suggested Reading
- Garri S. Urban: Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead This is the true and striking story by a Jewish doctor of his struggle for survival when caught in 1939 between the evils of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia. After facing death from frontier patrols, a firing squad and torture, Urban arrives at a position of considerable power in Soviet society in a medical post. He risks his life again, fighting epidemics. These fascinating memoirs give a very rare glimpse of the Soviet Union in wartime, particularly into the exotic life of the Moiscow elite, where beautiful women, diplomats and spies mingled at parties and sex was used as a method of recruiting agents. Compassionate to the sick, defiant to authority, Garri S Urban courage
- Ruth Kluger: Landscape of Memory - a Holocaust Girlhood Remembered Ruth Kluger is one of the child-survivors of the Holocaust. In 1942 at the age of 11, she was deported to the Nazi "family camp" Theresienstadt with her mother. They would move to two other camps before the war ended. This book is the story of Ruth's life. Of a childhood spent in the nazi camps and her refusal to forget the past as an adult in America. Not erasing a single detail, not even the inconvienient ones, she writes frankly about the troubled relationship with her mother even through their years of internment and her determination not to forgive and absolve the past.
- Sir Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust A very thorough account of the experience of the Jews of Europe during World War II. This title gives a virtual day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race.
- Anne Applebaum: Gulag The Pulitzer Prize winning narrative of the origins and development of the Soviet concentration camps. Based on archives, interviews and new research the book explains the role that the camps played in the Soviet political and economic system.
- Richard Overy: Russia's War The astounding events of 1941-45 in which the Soviet Union, after initial catastrophes, destroyed Hitler's Third Reich and shaped European history for the next fifty years.
- Willy Peter Reese: A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944 The haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead.
- Slavomir Rawicz: The Long Walk The story of a young Polish cavalry officer who was arrested by the Russians, tortured and sentenced to 25 years forced labour. His escape and journey across the Gobi desert to Tibet and freedom.
- Jean-Francois Steiner: Treblinka This is without a doubt one of the better books about the death camps. You will become intimately acquainted with Treblinka and the Nazis who ran it. Steiner's book is well-written and does justice to the horror.
- Rodric Braithwaite: Moscow 1941Sunday Times review - ‘a wide-ranging and excellent account...Braithwaite never shirks the terrible truths
Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum made a key contribution the documentary of Garri Urban's life.
Her website documents her work on the legacy of communism contains extracts from her Pulitzer Prize book - GULAG: A History
Sir Martin Gilbert
Sir Martin Gilbert is considered by many to be among the leading historians of the modern world.
His website contains a wealth of information about his work, and also provides links to his most recent thoughts and writings.
Suggested Films
Schindlers List
The 2004 release telling the true stroy of Schindlers attempts to save Jewish workers from the horrors of the German camps....
The Story Of The Gulag Runaway
In Stalinist Russia, Chabua Amiredjibi endured years of imprisonment, backbreaking punishment, horrific torture, and two death sentences. But his broken life and ill health did not kill his hope of gaining freedom. In all, he managed six escapes from Stalin's Gulag Camps. He stood up, fought and survived.
The 2004 release telling the true stroy of Schindlers attempts to save Jewish workers from the horrors of the German camps....
The Story Of The Gulag Runaway
In Stalinist Russia, Chabua Amiredjibi endured years of imprisonment, backbreaking punishment, horrific torture, and two death sentences. But his broken life and ill health did not kill his hope of gaining freedom. In all, he managed six escapes from Stalin's Gulag Camps. He stood up, fought and survived.
4 comments:
I wait with anticipation the final film on this mans life. I am very interested in anyone who has managed to escape from this kind of life as it relates to my family history. My Great Aunt escaped from East Germany although much later in the 1960s but life in East Germany was still very scary and tough. She only remained in East Germany for so long as she was hoping that her missing husband would return home. She felt if she left he would be unable to find her. Eventually she left leaving her whole life and all her belongings behind knowing she would never be able to return to her home and her old life.
I am very interested in this side of history.
I also had family in the French Resistance and again to me this topic is most interesting.
Please keep making these documentaries stories such as these should be told. I have no way of finding out the true extent of the suffering and courage of my family and this is the clearest insight I can get.
Thank you
Hello.I'mwaiting forward to see the dokumentary you filming.This subject is very hot for me as I grew up in komunist Bulgaria.My grand dad which I never had the chance to see couldn't manage to escape though.He had a famyly with 5 kids and was send to Belene camp in Bulgaria just because he aws a royal cavalry officer.
Hi Lydia - I am so sorry to hear that your family has been touched by the events that we have discussed on this website. I hope you do get to see the documentary - are you in the UK? I hope that we will be able to provide you with a list of sites that will be showing the film....
Hi Briony - Thanks for your comments.
It is amazing that so many people who have viewed this site have been so directly affected by the events in Russia and Germany, but then with so many million suffering at the time maybe I shouldn't be so shocked....
I am sure that all those that experienced the horrors of the gulags, the concentration camps and oppression at the hands of Stalin and Hitler showed bravery and courage - I can't imagine that there would have been any other way to cope.
Shuld you want any further information, or feel that a screening of the film at a local school / hall etc would be of use, please let us know and I will see what we can do.
Take care.
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