A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II [Paperback]

Gustaw Herling (Author), Andrzej Ciolkosz (Translator), Bertrand Russell (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1996

In 1940, Gustav Herling was arrested after he joined an underground Polish army that fell into Russian hands. He was sent to a northern Russian labour camp, where he spent the two most horrible years of his life. In this book, he tells of the people he was imprisoned with, the hardships they endured, and the indomitable spirit and will that allowed them to survive. Above all, he creates a portrait of how people - deprived of food, clothing, proper medical care, and forced to work at hard labour - can come together to form a community that offers hope in the face of hopelessness, that offers life when even the living have no life left.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Polish (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Gustav Herling was born in 1919 in Kielce, Poland. After the war, he lived in London and Munich, finally settling in Naples. He was one of the founding editors of Kultura, a magazine conceived as 'a forum for independent thought and imagination'. Anne Appelbaum studied Russian history and literature at Yale and International Relations at the London School of Economics and St Antony's College, Oxford. She has been a writer at the Economist, foreign and deputy editor at the Spectator and columnist for the Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. She is now a columnist and a member of the editorial board for the Washington Post. She is the author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Gulag: A History (Penguin, 2003). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140251847
• ISBN-13: 978-0140251845
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece yet to be discovered, February 2, 2005

By 

Leszek Strzelecki (Beltsville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (Paperback)

Perhaps the best summary of this book comes from Bertrand Russell himself who wrote an introduction to the first English edition of "World Apart" in 1951: "Among the many books that I have read about experiences of the victims of the Soviet prisons and camps, the `World Apart' by Gustaw Herling impressed me the most and is best written. This book possesses very rarely seen power of simple and lively narrative and it is completely impossible to question anywhere his truthfulness."

In spite of this testimony from one of the greatest intellectuals of the XX Century, the book did not enjoy much recognition for many years. Even today, more than half a century after its publication, this masterpiece still remains in relative obscurity, save the Herling's native Poland. It is an example of a thing done by "a wrong guy at the wrong time in the wrong place". Czeslaw Milosz explained that condition somewhat like this: After the war Gustaw Herling was known more for his service in the Polish Army of Wladyslaw Anders considered at the time, especially in France and Italy, as Fascist and the book was clearly anti-Soviet. At the same time the prevailing mood, especially among the left-leaning intellectuals was decisively pro-Soviet. After all the Soviet Union was an Ally who played decisive role in the defeat of the Nazi Germany.

The true nature of the Soviet system was not fully revealed and acknowledged until the publication of Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1963) and, more importantly, "The Gulag Archipelago" (1974). Important as these works are, however, the testimony of Herling preceded them by more than a decade and it is the first, as far as I can tell, in depth account of the reality of Soviet system. Unfortunately the works by Solzhenitsyn did not do much good to redeeming this book's value. Perhaps, they even overshadowed it.

The "World Apart" is an account of the real events that happened during Herling's "tenure" in the camps of Kargopole in the deep North of the Soviet Union. And the real were the people he wrote about. But this book is not merely an account of these unspeakable events. Herling goes much further. He offers his analysis of "what happened how and why". And he offers the portraits of people describing what can happen to a man under the conditions of extreme terror, cold, hunger and overwork. It is a warning to all those "homegrown moralists" who in the comforts of their secure existence in freedom feel in their rights to pass judgments on others regardless of circumstances they really know nothing about.

However horrific were the events described and however terrible was what happened to and with the people in the camps the overall "climate", if you will, of this book is not altogether gloomy. While not concealing what happened with the inmates in terms of their own behavior, Gustaw Herling refrains very consistently from passing judgments on them. The inmates were ordinary people and their misery, including sometimes complete moral disintegration and loss of dignity, was inflicted upon them and they were the victims. One cannot demand impossible from others and cannot expect something he had not proven capable of delivering himself.

But his judgment of the nature of the Soviet system itself is unmistakable and uncompromising. It is astonishing that even today while there is hardly any confusion as to the nature of the Nazism, there is still much ignorance, misunderstanding and under-appreciation for the evils of Communism, including it's most degraded Stalinist brand. "World Apart" by Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski fully deserves to be recognized as one of the most in-depth, original analysis of the nature of the Soviet system (and beyond) and is a genuine masterpiece of the literature of the XX Century. If there is a work that this book should be compared to it is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Notes from the Underground".

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, September 5, 2000

By 

"bearinatree" (Portland, ME USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (Paperback)

A World Apart is reminiscent of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. Where A Day in the Life... is defined by a mood of monotony and despair, A World Apart provides greater detail in the events defining the two year prison existence of Gustaw Herling.

The book is beautifully written and completely unsentimental. There are no lessons in the power of the human spirit. It is the men who do not cling to hope who have a chance of survival. Hope means recognizing the obliqueness of the present situation. This knowledge is what brings despair and death.

This is the most graphic account I have read of the gulags. Gustaw manages to step back from the events taking place and with out sentiment or condemnation report. Herling writes that inhumane conditions will change the behavior of those individuals affected. Some of the prisoners actions can be explained in light of this. Highly recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A different look at the GULAG, December 20, 2006

By 

Bob Manson (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (Paperback)

I first read The Gulag Archipelago when I was in middle school, and it left a lasting impression. What I hadn't realized was there were other authors who had written about the subject before Solzhenitsyn.

Herling's book is a very readable introduction to life in the GULAG; he was a prisoner for eighteen months until he was released to work as part of the war effort. Told from a first-person perspective, it's not as detailed and doesn't present as many disparate views as The Gulag Archipelago but is still very interesting and enlightening.

It's especially recommended if you're curious about the subject and don't have the patience or the time to work through Solzhenitsyn's works.