As the current administration detains immigrants in overseas prisons, viewing this as a demonstration of national strength, I am reminded of my father's own disappearance, his reasons for seeking refuge in America, and ultimately, why I am here today.
My father's experiences throughout wartime and concentration camps serve as a powerful reminder that authoritarianism does not fortify a country. Despite warnings that empathy is a vulnerability of Western civilization, it has historically been one of America’s greatest assets—and now, under the present leadership, that trait faces serious jeopardy.
My father’s family was of Armenian descent. During the Second World War, relatives spread across Eastern Europe covertly operated a spy network that relayed Nazi intelligence to the Allies. This network was uncovered by the Gestapo, leading to the arrest of my courageous cousin Izabela in Poland in 1942, along with her daughter, Teresa. Izabela perished in Auschwitz, while Teresa endured brutal medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors.
My father and other close family members were also detained due to their involvement in the espionage efforts. They were imprisoned in Romania, where officials and law enforcement—the so-called 'deep state'—shielded them from Nazi control. Though incarcerated for a period, they survived and were ultimately freed, aided in part by bribery.
Izabela’s son-in-law, Boguslaw Horodynski, a Polish national who led the spy ring, survived the war but fell victim to Soviet suspicion. The emerging Communist regime viewed him as a threat and sent him to a forced labor camp in the Siberian gulag. It is believed Boguslaw was forced to work in the Kolyma mines, a place infamously described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as the 'pole of cold and cruelty.'
Romania’s prime minister personally petitioned Stalin for clemency, but the Soviet leader refused to relent.
This episode perhaps reflects Stalin’s perspective: an immigrant in Romania perceived as a security risk, for whom due process was irrelevant and who was therefore dispatched to a distant prison without recourse.
