The Story Behind "Under Jakob's Ladder" -- Part 2

A week or so ago, we were giving a bit of a history behind the feature film, UNDER JAKOB'S LADDER...

To understand the world in which Jakob lived.

Winter, 1932-33. Not a pleasant time for those who lived in the Soviet Ukraine. In fact, this year (2008) marks the 75th anniversary of what is called the holodomor.

What happened? Well, in an effort to squelch resistance to the centralized five-year plans, Stalin ordered the harvests be removed from the possession of their owners. In other words, a forced famine.

This included Jakob's village. Jakob and his family barely survived that winter of starvation. Many others did not.

But Stalin got what he wanted; the people lost their will to resist the collectivization of agriculture.

Then, in the late 1930s, Stalin began his political purges. Pitting neighbor against neighbor, even children were enticed to turn in their parents. Men were carted off by the truckloads to face false accusations imprisonment, exile and death.

The secret police would always come at night in a vehicle that was nicknamed the Black Raven. Men became scarce in the villages.

Most of what we know about Jakob and his family comes from oral tradition. The movie is intended as a tribute to the many thousands of German-Russians from the Soviet Territories who did not survive the Stalinist purges. It is also offered as a reminder of the courage of those people who did.