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Just Send Me Word
- A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
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Narration
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The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
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In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hopefully Not Prescient
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Since its beginnings, Poland has been a moving target, geographically as well as demographically, and the very definition of who is a Pole has been in flux. In the late medieval and early modern periods, the country grew to be the largest in continental Europe, only to be later wiped off the map for more than a century. Yet even under these constraints, Poles persisted in their desire to wrest from their oppressors a modicum of national dignity and, ultimately, managed to achieve much more than that.
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Easy listen.
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Publisher's summary
"I went to get the letters for our friends, and couldn't help but feel a little envious, I didn't expect anything for myself. And suddenly-there was my name, and, as if it was alive, your handwriting."
In 1946, after five years as a prisoner - first as a Soviet POW in Nazi concentration camps, then as a deportee (falsely accused of treason) in the Arctic Gulag - 29-year-old Lev Mishchenko unexpectedly received a letter from Sveta, the sweetheart he had hardly dared hope was still alive. Amazingly, over the next eight years, the lovers managed to exchange more than 1,500 messages and even to smuggle Sveta herself into the camp for secret meetings. Their recently discovered correspondence is the only known real-time record of life in Stalin's Gulag, unmediated and uncensored.
Orlando Figes, author of Natasha's Dance, draws on Lev and Sveta's letters as well as KGB archives and recent interviews to brilliantly reconstruct the broader world in which their story unfolded. With the powerful narrative drive of a novel, Just Send Me Word reveals a passion and endurance that triumphed over the tragic forces of history.
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- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
-
Always Remember Your Name
- A True Story of Family and Survival in Auschwitz
- By: Andra Bucci, Tatiana Bucci
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 19
On March 28, 1944, six-year-old Tati and her four-year-old sister, Andra, were roused from their sleep and arrested. Along with their mother, Mira, their aunt, and cousin Sergio, they were deported to Auschwitz. Over 230,000 children were deported to the camp, where Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, performed deadly experiments on them. Only a few dozen children survived, Tati and Andra among them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important read!
- By Holly Thomas on 02-24-22
By: Andra Bucci, and others
-
Echoes from the Holocaust
- A Memoir
- By: Mira Ryczke Kimmelman
- Narrated by: Susan Marlowe
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
The daughter of a Jewish seed exporter, the author was born Mira Ryczke in 1923 in a suburb of the Baltic seaport of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Her childhood was happy, and she learned to cherish her faith and heritage. Through the 1930s, Mira's family remained in the Danzig area despite a changing political climate that was compelling many friends and neighbors to leave. With the Polish capitulation to Germany in the autumn of 1939, however, Mira and her family were forced from their home.
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4 out of 5 stars
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4.5* - memoir of a survivor
- By Christine Newton on 06-09-17
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,689
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,430
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,429
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
Lara
- The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago
- By: Anna Pasternak
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak - whose novel in progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet - he persecuted Boris' mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinskaya. Boris' affair with Olga devastated the straitlaced Pasternaks, and they were keen to disavow Olga's role in Boris' writing process.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A wonderfully enjoyable read
- By gran 80 on 03-15-17
By: Anna Pasternak
-
A Lucky Child
- A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy
- By: Thomas Buergenthal
- Narrated by: Thomas Buergenthal, Don Hagen
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir, A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Compelling Account
- By Simone on 04-23-15
-
Paper Love
- Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
- By: Sarah Wildman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Years after her grandfather's death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled "Correspondence: Patients A-G". What she found inside weren't dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family's prewar Vienna. One woman's letters stood out: those from Valy-Valerie Scheftel, her grandfather's lover who remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed Austria.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Compelling and Personal Exploration
- By Murphee on 08-09-23
By: Sarah Wildman
-
Adolfo Kaminsky
- A Forger's Life
- By: Sarah Kaminsky, Mike Mitchell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
At the age of 17, Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was living in Nazi-occupied Paris, using forged documents to hide in plain sight. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and his ability to masterfully reproduce official documents with an artistic eye, he was recruited to join the Jewish underground. He soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, working tirelessly with his network to create papers that would save an estimated 14,000 men, women, and children from certain death.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Incredible!
- By Mareo McCracken on 04-28-17
By: Sarah Kaminsky, and others
-
Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 79
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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Ravensbruck
- Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
- By: Sarah Helm
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 32 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 613
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 547
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 547
On a sunny morning in May 1939, a phalanx of 867 women - housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes - was marched through the woods 50 miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards. Their destination was Ravensbrück, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My mother was a Ravensbruck survivor.
- By Stephen Sean Campbell on 07-06-20
By: Sarah Helm
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Schindler's List
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 488
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 444
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 441
An “extraordinary” (New York Review of Books) novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally, author of The Book of Science and Antiquities and The Daughter of Mars, uses the actual testimony of the Schindlerjuden — Schindler’s Jews — to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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really well done
- By Neil H. Greenberg on 03-09-19
By: Thomas Keneally
-
The Whisperers
- Private Life in Stalin's Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 195
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 162
Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Real Life Dystopian Nightmare
- By Timothy on 08-31-18
By: Orlando Figes
-
Born Survivors
- Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope
- By: Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,249
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,096
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,094
Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left-their lives, and those of their unborn babies.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Just an incredible story!
- By PCF on 06-03-17
By: Wendy Holden
-
The Reluctant Communist
- My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
- By: Charles Robert Jenkins, Jim Fredrick
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
In January of 1965, 24-year-old US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for 40 years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick).
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent history and human story
- By Anonymous User on 09-16-21
By: Charles Robert Jenkins, and others
-
Nazis Knew My Name
- A Remarkable Story of Survival and Courage in Auschwitz
- By: Magda Hellinger, Maya Lee, David Brewster
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Zoe Carides
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 37
In March 1942, 25-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young women were deported as some of the first Jews to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The SS soon discovered that by putting prisoners in charge of the day-to-day accommodation blocks, they could deflect attention away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and put in charge of hundreds of women in the notorious Experimental Block 10. She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: saving lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Very interesting, & we’ll told!
- By Tracy F. on 07-14-23
By: Magda Hellinger, and others
-
The Envoy
- The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 165
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
Hailed as “a master storyteller” ( Booklist), Alex Kershaw routinely climbs best-seller lists with his narrative histories. In the waning months of World War II, SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann sent over half a million Hungarians to their deaths at Auschwitz. But one Jewish ghetto remained, and only one man - a Swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg - could stop Eichmann.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
an amazing story
- By Henry Rosenberg MD on 07-08-11
By: Alex Kershaw
-
Enemies of the People
- My Family's Journey to America
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton draws on her skill as an investigative reporter to discover who her journalist parents really were---and how they survived the Nazis in Budapest and imprisonment by the Soviets during the Cold War.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Jane on 04-09-10
By: Kati Marton
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Good overview of Russia. History that Provides an Effective Premise for Greater Understanding of Current Events
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The terrible conflict that dominated the mid-19th century, the Crimean War, killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land.
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What listeners say about Just Send Me Word
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Elaine R. R.
- 04-18-14
Not enough information
Would you consider the audio edition of Just Send Me Word to be better than the print version?
Can't compare, but the audio edition was very good.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The emotional relationship between the protagonists was most interesting, but it was not enough. It was unrealistic to me that there was no comment (in these uncensored letters) about Stalin, the repressions, politics. That would have been most interesting.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Daryl
- 07-31-12
Just send Me Word
Would you listen to Just Send Me Word again? Why?
Absolutel! This book not only details the love story of Lev and Sveta but also deals with some of the political aspects of Russia that I was not familiar with. It also was quite obviously not exclusively a love storyl but a stoy of resilliance, trust, and a powerful network of friends and family, ordinary people.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Lev and Sveta. Keeping their love alive when it obviously presented such risk, particularly for Sveta. Also, all of the friends and family who helped along the way.
Have you listened to any of James Langton’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I haven't listened to any of his other books, but perhaps I will listen to one that takes place in England. It took some geting used to, hearing Russian language and streets and events from an Englishman...
Any additional comments?
An incredibly important book detailing the history of Russia, and highlighting the story of two lovers who beat the odds.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- audiobook2
- 01-20-23
Long, but worth it
Remarkable documentation of a terrible situation with extraordinary people and a brutal environment. Excellent insight into a dictatorship in which the people are mandated to believe in the system that is repressing them.
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