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The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin Through Stalin

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Father has written an important book on our history. Many of us have learned new information about the history of our Church, of people who suffered in the camps for the Faith, because we were not allowed to read about this. Often it was dangerous to even talk about people who had been taken away, or know the full name of a priest who came to serve Liturgy for us.
We now can worship freely, but still not always in our own churches. And conditions in some places are still strict against our Church. You cannot understand the modern problems between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and the pain of the underground believers, unless you read this book.

Fr. ZUGGER's book, "THE FORGOTTEN" covers a portion of what has been covered up in this country on the fate of GERMAN settlers in Russia. Estimates of the amount of people killed under COMMUNISM, range around 1/6 of the population of the earth.

I have been working on the GERMAN CATHOLIC colonies of RUSSIA since 1950 and have a huge amount of material collected on these people. My fathers family immigrated to RUSSIA in 1767 and my mothers side in 1809.

I purchased this upon a friend's recommendation and balked at the number of pages when it arrived. It was not an easy read for me because of it's fragmented time-line, unfamiliar terms, personages and geographical references. In spite of these stumbling blocks I was captivated by the book's historical insights. It's different from the "mass media" history I was taught. This is the battle of evil against good. Before reading the book I thought I knew how tricky politicians could be to get power. I was wrong. I recommend the book just to give more insight into Russian History and the Russian mind. You just may recognize some techniques being pulled here in the United States. I guess politics and evil don't change no matter what the ideology is called.

Expect to be up all night with this gripping, incredible account of how atheists tried to destroy religion in the old Soviet Union.

Zugger starts out stating the obvious: "Many in the West seem determined to excuse or minimize" (p xvii) the holocaust caused by the Soviet communists.

Then Zugger leaves them no excuse possible as he proves the case of how atheist Communism attempted to destroy the religion.

A stated goal of the Communists was to "liberate the toiling masses from" religion (p 106), which is why they formed the League of Militant Atheists and set out to drive religion from the country. In November 1918 Lenin wrote out a secret order calling for the "mass execution of priests" (p 111).

The murders began.

Nor were the killings of unarmed, frequently elderly, nuns and priests simple gun shots to the head. Archbishop Andronnik of Perm was buried alive. Archbishop Vasily was crucified and burned. Father Johannes, for example, was "dismembered...and left ...for the wild animals" (p 123). The cruelty and viciousness of the Communists knew no bounds.

"Literally thousands of Orthodox bishops, priests, monks and nuns" (p 124) were butchered.

As the Communists gained control of the country, believers were under fierce attack. Many ended up in the Gulag.

"Catholics were forced to watch...their devoted priests being publicly tortured and strung up...by 1930 not a single urban church was left and all of the priests were dead or imprisoned" (p 251) in the Caucasus.

To give you an idea of the scale of the killings, "One grave found in 1989) in mines near Chelyabinsk yielded the remains of 300,000 people...A grave in Volhynia holds 15,000 bodies found in October, 1997" (p 258). The dead died during the mid 1930s.

And then came what became known as the 'final blow' for believers during the time of Stalin when fanatical Communists set up show trials for the few remaining clergy.

Even in an official Russian government report published in 1995, they estimate that ""200,000 Russian Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns had been slain and another 500,000 imprisoned " (p 277). And in the same report "in the time before World War II an estimated 1,000 Roman Catholic priests had been killed outright...614 parishes closed...Of those priests arrested and interred a grand total of twelve would survive the Gulag (p 277).

May I repeat that? Twelve would survive.

Children were told in school to report any action that suggested a parent was religious. It was illegal to preach Christianity. All children were taught only atheism. All church hospitals, colleges, schools, agencies, newspapers, and magazines were against the law. Churches were torn down or turned into stables or dance halls or museums of atheism. Centuries old priceless religious objects were destroyed. All books about religion were banned or burned.

After World War II, the Soviets occupied vast new territories, and the terror began for believers in such countries as Estonia.

In Estonia alone all the clergy were arrested and, significantly, "None of the clergymen returned" (p 331).

The Vatican was almost alone in spreading news of the holocaust. Pope Pius XII "threatened excommunication for Catholics who belonged to the Communist Party" (p 387).

But President Roosevelt made no protest as the Soviets took over the small nations and even declared "that he believed religious freedom would be restored in the USSR after World War II" (p 372).

Funny how, instead, during "1949-1951 nearly 80 percent of the Catholic clergy were jailed" or killed (p 403) in the new Soviet nations.

Right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union Christians were declared 'insane' and sent to mental institutions were they were alternately tortured, drugged, and deprived of sleep or food unless they rejected God.

Anyone with an interest in this subject will also want to read "The Plot to Kill God", which details atheism's attack on religion under Communism, and "The Black Book of Communism" which discusses all the vast millions murdered under various Communist governments. We are talking rivers of blood, and within the living memory of people today.

Why haven't there been any movies about the holocaust caused by Communists? The only one I can think of was "The Killing Fields". And why is the one hundred and fifty million slaughtered in the last century never a topic in academia??

THE FORGOTTEN is a compelling book that brings readers through the many challenging events in the lives of Soviet Catholics from 1925 - 1991. The author clearly did impressive research and you can feel his great devotion to these forgotten about and persecuted Catholics.

Rev. Zugger has recently published another book: FINDING A HIDDEN CHURCH. This book enthrallingly tells of the underground and later open lives of Ruthenian Greek Catholics. Rev. Zugger included over 90 maps and photos to help tell the inspiring stories. [...].

Being raised both Byzantine and Roman Catholic, this book really opened my eyes to the painful yet resilient history that my ancestors endured in the "old country" i.e. Slovakia and Russia under communistic rule. With many of our relatives and grandparents long gone now, this book really connects the dots as to the hardships, persecution and dedication that our forefathers had to endure to keep our faith alive.
Highly recommended!