Remember Us, a book by Vancouver writer Ruth Derksen Siemens, centres on letters written by a family imprisoned during Josef Stalin’s rule of Russia.

Maria Regehr and her children (pictured) wrote them over a 26-year period.

The story of how the letters were unearthed is told in Through the Red Gate. The DVD centres on Peter Bargen, a B.C. resident who made a startling discovery in 1989. In a relative’s attic, he found a cache of extraordinary letters. They revealed crucial details of what he and his forbears had suffered.

At age seven, he escaped from the Russian Gulag with his family. Left behind were some of their relatives – who were among an estimated 45 – 60 million people who suffered death by disease, starvation or murder.

The DVD features inspiring anecdotes.

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For example, when one train got to Latvia, the passengers spontaneously sang ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ in German.

A dissident went to the local government facility to get his documents signed. While waiting to see the bureaucrat in charge, he apprehensively noticed that a wanted poster with his face was on the wall outside the official’s office. His papers were processed, and he and his family were allowed to go.

Some letters were written in such a way that the reader needed to decipher the  meaning.

One letter simply included a reference to     “2 Corinthians 4:7-9.”

The writers, said Bargen, assumed a good communist censor “wouldn’t dare have a scripture in his desk.”

Derksen Siemens will speak several times this month: June 3, Willow Park Mennonite Church, Kelowna; June 6 – 7, MEI Middle School, Abbotsford; June 8, Clearbrook Mennonite Church, Abbotsford.        

More info: gulagletters.com.             – DFD

June 2008