Running Away From Stalin

Running Away From Stalin is the harrowing tale of a man who lived under Stalin and Hitler before finding freedom.

Most people believe that Nazi Germany perpetrated the largest ethnic cleansing the world had ever seen but that is not true. At the close of WWII, it was ironically, mostly ethnic Germans that faced the largest ethnic cleansing and forced migration the world has ever known.

Around 25 million people were forced from their homes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the close of WWII. Many could not safely stay in Europe. America's doors were closed.

So, what happened to them?

Running Away from Stalin recounts the life of a Russian-born, German-Mennonite man whose family fled southern Russia (Ukraine) for the falsely assumed safety of Nazi Germany. By the age of five Alfred Hecht was living a new life with his family in one of the most isolated regions of the world-the Paraguayan Chaco-in a land of hunters and gatherers. The family was later allowed to immigrate to Canada. There, from the age of thirteen, he studied hard and eventually became a well-known university professor at Wilfred Laurier University. Now at the age of eighty-two, he looks back upon his life, with reflective lessons that have an uncanny resemblance to the present.

In the Spring of 2024, author Mark Hecht flew out from the West Coast to Ontario where he spent a month recording Uncle Alfred's stories.

The biography takes a personal, in-depth look at the Hecht family's journey on the Great Trek out of the Ukraine and delves into Alfred Hecht's own life story as it began in 1942.

Hitler's tanks rolled into the Hecht family's village in 1941, one year before Alfred Hecht was born. As Nazi Germany began to lose the war on the Russian front, the Hecht family had to decide if they would remain in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union or join Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. They choose Nazi Germany. That choice would force them to flee across the Northern Plains of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, only to land in the South American country of Paraguay where a hard scrabble existence awaited them. Unlike others, as a young boy, Alfred found Paraguay was an adventure playground but the family left seven years later and went to another foreign land--Canada. Starting life anew, Canada came with greater opportunities. Alfred Hecht became a geography professor at Wilfred Laurier University in 1972 where he spent the bulk of his career.

While Canada offered freedom, Alfred's past never seemed to leave him. He found, perhaps through divine intervention, that he was directed toward reconciliation with his past. He found himself fatefully returning to the Soviet Union in 1976. In 1989 he was at the fall of the Berlin Wall. And in the 1990s, he was asked by the Soviet Union for his help to rebuild their economy after it had collapsed.

The land of his youth had sent him off as a refugee only to later ask for his help as an adult.

So, what happened to the 25 million refugees at the end of WWII?

This is the story of one.