A Radiance in the Gulag

by Nijole Sadunaite

In August of 1974, Nijole Sadunaite was arrested by the KGB in Lithuania for the "crime" of helping to circulate the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania -- an underground journal which records the heroism of the Church behind the Iron Curtain. Thereafter, she was sentenced to three years in the Gurlag and three years in exile in Siberia. The conclusion was inevitable: a broken spirit, another crushed Catholic to be used in the Communist cause.

But Nijole Sadunaite wouldn't crush. Nourished by an ever-deepening Faith and trust in God, she endured her ordeal, embracing both her fellow prisoners and her captors in an unquenchable Christian love -- and steadfastly refusing to betray her contacts in the larger underground Catholic world.

Fighting error with truth, Nijole has managed to smuggle her story out of Lithuania. Here, for the first time, she presents the dramatic account of her precarious family life under an enemy regime, her own defense of the Church, her trial, imprisonment and exile, and her continued efforts to serve Our Lord while evading the ever-watchful KGB.

A Radiance in the Gulag is the story of one woman's challenge to the vast power of an atheistic state -- a truly awe-inspiring story of courage, faith and love.

148 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Mary Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knowing that this book was smuggled over to the West as a hand-typed manuscript under the nose of the KGB and The Iron Curtain by secret associates of Miss Nijole, makes you understand how important it was for this Catholic girl's story to reach the public and before you have even started you can already feel the grip that the Soviets had over the poor inhabitants of Lithuania.
Nijole was (and is, I'm happy to say,) a remarkable woman, born into a remarkable family of saints, and blessed by a holy community who gave up their lives for their freedom and their faith. This book goes into detail about the hardships she faced and it boggles the mind to think that this was only in the nineteen-eighties; while we in the West had pop songs, and Back To The Future endowed upon us, they had a hard time finding bread to eat, let alone be permitted to watch pop culture films.
But the amazing spirit of Nijole, her parents, brother, and close friends, managed to thrive even more than before under the surveillance and persecutions of the Russian Communists, using the evil inflicted on them to bring to God precious gifts of love and forgiveness.

This is one awesome book, and I think it should be getting more attention!

OK! I'll be doing a parent/reader's guide to what books may contain from now on in my reviews, so here's the first:

Reader's guide of what this book contains and what to expect
(THERE MAY BE SLIGHT SPOILERS, BUT I'M NEVER GOING INTO ANY DETAILS.)

VIOLENCE AND GORE:
Naturally, being a non-fiction survival story, there are constant vivid descriptions of what Nijole and other prisoners suffered. Including guards violently kicking two dead men's bodies, after torturing them daily (we hear that their clothing came back bloodied and torn) where at one point one man is placed in a room full of sewage so the fumes makes him pass out. We hear that some prisoners kill each other when intoxicated and the bodies aren't found until days later when they reek with decay. There are three teenage girls who were part of a group that mauled and maimed innocent passers by to get their money.
There are many more scenes like these, but it actually doesn't go into great detail.

FRIGHTENING/UNCOMFORTABLE PARTS:
A mental hospital gives their patients painful experimental injections. Several times she is chased by murderers, and the other prisoners having bad pasts are often foul. Thus book is about the pursecution of the Christians, namely Catholics, and the religious orders are horribly tortured as well as the religiously devoted.

ADULT CONTENT:
There is one mention that the male prisoners are gambling to chose who should get Nijole as their "prize", but it goes no further.

PROFANITY:
Their are a few smaller words and one or two blasphemies, but it's usually the Soviet officers. It is mentioned that the officers swear the worst swearing of against one's Mother, and that they are speaking in the most foul language, but their words are never mentioned.

DRUGS AND DRINKING:
It's Soviet Russia, everyone is drinking and smoking. We even here that someone us overjoyed that Nijole doesn't drink, unlike all his other employees who can't even milk the cows. Teenagers kill for drinking and smoking money.

[Shelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from my Sister-in-law because I have an interest in Russian and Soviet history and in the Gulags. I had heard this book was the "Christian" version of Ann Frank's Diary.

Honestly, I couldn't get past the first chapter. Although I admire Sadunaite's strong faith, she wrote more about God than about her story of being in the Gulag. Maybe I will try to read it again later, when I am in the mood for biblical reading.