Flashback: Communist Labor Camps

A VOICE FROM THE PAST SPEAKS A CLEAR

MESSAGE OF WARNING TO THE PRESENT GENERATION,

ESPECIALLY THOSE IN AMERICA TODAY WHO
 ARE SO CAPTIVATED BY THE IDEOLOGIES

OF SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

(1909-2001)

Founder of the Voice of the Martyrs Ministries

and author of the book, "Tortured for Christ"

which recounts his horrific ordeal of torture

and imprisonment for 14 years inside a communist prison.

Until the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe, Richard Wurmbrand spoke out tirelessly

against the persecution of Christians in that part of the world.

He refused to remain silent about the evils of communism

and how its godless ideology was used to persecute the body of Christ.

Iron-fisted regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

followed the philosophy of Karl Marx, who stated that,

"Religion is the opium of the people."

These oppressive communist governments sought the end of

religion, singling out Christians who did not bend to the will of the state.

Those bold enough to speak against the government were intimidated,

imprisoned, and tortured. Many were sentenced to labor camps with

the goal of "re-educating" them to a communist way of thinking.

In labor camps reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps, prisoners

experienced back-breaking labor, lack of food and harsh living conditions.

Richard wrote about atrocities such as prisoners starved to death and

Christians being poisoned. 

Christian farmers were imprisoned in these camps for the "crime"

of refusing to work on Sunday. According to one eyewitness account,

a group of Christian farmers in a Siberian camp who refused to work

on Easter Sunday 1967 were forced to stand on the ice barefoot for

the whole day. Miraculously, not one of them fell sick.

Richard told the world about the courage of these believers and

urged Christians to write to the families of those imprisoned or those

who had died in camps, a ministry that we continue to this day.

In 1969 Richard wrote, "What a privilege it is for you and for us

to be helpful to the church which gives us such heroes. Now these,

our brothers and our sisters, have been sentenced. They go to

Siberia, to the land of the white death. They will do slave

labor in ragged clothing. They will stand knee-deep in swamps

and snow. Their food will be meager and the weak among them

will soon die...But their names will remain forever written in

heaven and in the hearts of Christians everywhere."

May we continue to be helpful to the church today.

 THE ENEMIES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,
 OUR FREEDOM AND OUR WAY OF LIFE

ARE COUNTING ON WOEFUL IGNORANCE 
AND INDIFFERENCE OF THE TRUTH
 IN ORDER TO WIN IN THIS CRUCIAL ELECTION YEAR.
THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE THIS NOVEMBER. 

"Further, churches assert their wish to save men from a future hell.

Then they should prove their love toward men by helping save 

the world from today's hell of illiteracy, hunger, misery,

tyranny, exploitation, and war."

-Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

"Flashback: Communist Labor Camps"

The Voice of the Martyrs Magazine

February 2017