In the post-war period, Soviet recruiters traveled the world tracking down former citizens of the Russian empire or those who fled during the war. "They promised him mountains of gold," Liliane Jean-Monnet remembers. Her father was convinced that western messaging about the Soviet Union was false. He was among the thousands who took the bait. He moved his wife and French-born children to "communist paradise" in 1947 — a choice the family bitterly regrets to this day.
Generation Gulag is a series of nine short documentary films that uncovers the impact of Russia’s campaign to rewrite the history of Gulag survivors. The series features interviews and animated illustrations of the survivors’ memories, offering an accessible medium for understanding the dangers of recent campaigns to make history books fit new political narratives.
This story was first published by Coda Story. Watch the Generation Gulag series here.
