NKVD

this level of evil to the plans of the officers. Like horribly sick minded scavengers, they steal and split innocent families. They turn their worlds to ice. Black ice. Their lives become battles to make it through each day. I’ve been a slave for the NKVD for a while now and I’ve heard it all. Seen it all too, and I’d miss it all if I could. Just thinking about what they do is too heart breaking, even for a soul with a heart of steel and a stomach of coal. I know their plans. The officers will…

forget” is repeated over and over. Fiction Text- Between Shades of Gray: by Ruta Sepetys “Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.” (27) Lina’s brother wasn’t taken away because the NKVD officer thought that the pocket watch was valuable. The officer was going to take one of the most important thing away from Lina and her family. This quote symbolizes the value of some human beings. The Jew 's life was worth little or nothing to…

I saw the file on the desk...I grabbed the file and shoved it in my coat.“Yes, let’s go,” I said, rushing through the door. Jonas had no idea what I had done.”(Sepetys 218) Lina lets desire and curiosity overtake her knowing that stealing from the NKVD had dire consequences. Ultimately, her actions could have affected her family or the other Lithuanians severely. She failed to recognize this and took the file for her own personal satisfaction. Lina lets her intense emotions take over her in the…

dozens of other innocent people, the family is whisked away by the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) far from home with slight chances of getting away. They endure a lot, which includes torture, threatening, abuse, and starvation, but the family does their best to stay strong and make it through the next day. Being seen as criminals to the Soviets, the Vilkas’ are treated like futile objects, not human beings. When the NKVD tried to take Jonas away from Lina and her mother, he is bartered off for an…

undercover policeman. Ever since I can remember I knew that the work being done by the FBI and the CIA was something that was considered to be very private that the public was never made aware of. Until this point I had no knowledge that the secret/ KGB/NKVD even existed, and it really excites me. I hope it excites you too. For many, many years various countries have created and used some form of secret police such as the FBI and CIA. The names by which they are referred to varies based on…

Upon opening the book Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, a foreboding and ominous feeling sweeps over you. Each sentence is laced with a gelid and captivating tone. Ruta Sepetys immerses you into the world of Lina Vilkas and her family. The book is saturated with death and lowers the value of human life, but demands for you to turn page after page. The book does a great job of propelling into the main plot right away while still developing each character. By the time each character dies,…

in order to accommodate the changing political and economic environment, Lenin called for the dissolution of the Cheka, and transferred its responsibilities to an organization called the GPU in 1922. The GPU was intended to be part of the greater NKVD, and had less responsibilities than the previous Cheka, mainly because there was not a state of emergency. This change in responsibilities included a more passive role in internal affairs, only lending the GPU the ability to handle overt threats to…

In the 1940s, Josef Stalin took middle-class families from their homes in Lithuania to Siberia. The men were separated from the children and women. Fifteen years old, Lina and her ten-year-old brother and her mother were taken from their home in the evening June 14, 1941. Their father was taken from work that day. On the journey, they meet a boy named Andrius and an irritable bald man whose leg is most likely broken. The author Ruta Sepetys showed that a moral the readers could learn from…

With all the clues in place, Lina realizes that Andrius and his mother were working with Soviets. Lina’s suspicion began when a job to spy and report on the Lithuanian was offered to her mother by the Soviets. Having the mindset of disliking betrayal, Mother declined the job offer. Due to this occurrence, Lina received the knowledge that anyone could be a spy or work with the Soviets for a better living than what they currently have. Another piece of evidence was that Lina had never seen Andrius…

confinements were overflowing amid his residency, the genuine way of his fascism was not known until his demise when Khrushchev's "mystery discourse" of 1956 uncovered the ruler as a domineering tyrant, and recounted the horrendous requests for the NKVD to do executions. The official figure of passings given by Russia was 681,692 yet Western history specialists, for example, Robert Conquest anticipate the figure to be no less than fifteen million (Conquest, 2007, p. vxi). The repercussions this…