Thomas Sgovio

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Thomas Sgovio arrest in USSR on March 21, 1938

Thomas Sgovio (7 October 1916 – 3 July 1997) was an American

USSR because of his political activities.[1]

Biography

He was born in Buffalo, New York on 7 October 1916.

Sgovio moved to the USSR at the age of 19 with his father Joseph "...who the United States deported as a communist agitator in 1935."

Lubyanka Prison and later transported to Taganka Prison.[3] After a perfunctory and routine inquiry in which the Soviet authorities seem mainly to have been concerned with his attendance at the embassy, he was sentenced by a NKVD troika of three officials to forced labour as a "socially dangerous element".[1] Some years later Sgovio sought to have his case reviewed; the prosecutor who dealt with the application concluded that, "Sgovio does not deny that he did make an application at the American Embassy. Therefore I believe that there is no reason to review Sgovio's case.[1]

Sgovio was transported in a prison train to Vladivostok. Sgovio wrote, "Our train left Moscow on the evening of 24 June. It was the beginning of an eastward journey which was to last a month. I can never forget the moment. Seventy men ... began to cry."[4] From Vladivostok he was shipped aboard the SS Indigirka to the Kolyma camps.

Within the camps the professional criminals were often kept alongside and dominated the other prisoners including the

Second World War, Sgovio learned of the conflict in the Pacific when machine parts wrapped in old newspapers arrived in the Gulag having been diverted from the US Lend-Lease program with the USSR.[8] He witnessed and later wrote about the starvation and deaths of countless Gulag prisoners and victims of the Soviet authorities.[9]

Sgovio survived his ordeal. After a 16-year sentence in labor camps, he was released but initially had to remain in the USSR where he was stigmatised as a former prisoner.[10] Eventually he was permitted to return to the United States in 1960.[11] He related his experiences and the lethal nature of the camps in his memoir, Dear America! Why I Turned Against Communism, published in 1972.[12]

His fate is also recounted in

The Forsaken.[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Applebaum 2004, pp. 139–140
  2. ^ Cullison, Alan (November 9, 1997). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Associated Press. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ "Thomas Sgovi" Gulag History / Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. Retrieved December 5, 2011
  4. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 160 quoting Sgovio, Dear America!, 1979, pp. 129-35
  5. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 261
  6. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 250
  7. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 326
  8. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 400
  9. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 310 quoting Sgovio, Dear America!, 1979, pp. 160-162
  10. ^ Applebaum 2004, p. 460
  11. ^ Silvester, Christopher (6 September 2008). "Review: The Forsaken by Tim Tzouliadis". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
  12. ^ Sgovio, Thomas, Dear America! Why I Turned Against Communism, Partners' Press Kenmore, New York, 1979
  13. ISBN 978-1-59420-168-4

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Sgovio&oldid=1213340618"