Dear America Audiobook By Thomas Sgovio cover art

Dear America

The True Odyssey of an American Youth who Miraculously Survived the Concentration Camps of the Soviet Gulag

 Virtual Voice Sample
Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Dear America

By: Thomas Sgovio
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $11.99

Buy for $11.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel
Background images

This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

 Dear America! is the incredible first-hand account about how a young American teenager, Thomas Sgovio (1916-1997), miraculously survived 10 years in Stalin’s brutal concentration labor camps in Northern Siberia. After being released, he was forced to spend an additional 5 years in the timber regions of central Siberia as the Russian government would not allow him to leave the country, or live in any major city. After the death of Stalin, Thomas was finally released. It took him an additional 5 years working as a commercial artist in Moscow before he finally succeeded in extricating himself and his mother from the U.S.S.R in 1960. After leaving Russia, Tom lived in Italy where he married and worked on diverse artistic projects. Tom and his wife returned to the United States in 1963. Thomas was a native of Buffalo, New York and the only son of Joseph and Anna Sgovio. His father Joseph was a political idealist and believed in the early ideological dream of communism fighting for workers rights in early America. After years of protests and being arrested in Buffalo, New York, Joseph was deported from the USA in early 1933 and chose to live in what he thought was “The Dream” in the Soviet Union. When Thomas graduated from Buffalo Technical High School in 1935, he went to Russia, with his mother and sister, to continue his art education, and join his father. Thomas’ studies at the Moscow Vsyekokhudojhnik Gallery of Fine Arts were abruptly ended in 1938 when he was arrested by the Soviet Secret Police and sent to the Gulag. As an artist, Thomas Sgovio created a series of drawings and paintings, which reside in the Hoover Archives at Stanford University, based on memories of his life as a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. His love for his native home of Buffalo, New York which he often despaired of ever seeing again, is reflected in his renderings of Buffalo landmarks, which were started immediately after his return.
Tom has been recognized with many awards in Western New York for his beautiful artwork. He also gave countless seminars and displayed his paintings, all drawn from memory, depicting the repression that he and millions of others suffered in the Soviet Union. This was his way of spreading the message of Freedom and Democracy which he so dearly loved and treasured. Inspiring Stalin
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
This book should be required reading for everyone in the US, especially the "woke" - who resemble the Soviet commissars except the woke are quite a bit worse. Mr. Sgovio's ordeal, and millions of others, was 6 million times worse than the big catastrophe we've heard about and continue to hear about every day, even though there is no proof for nearly all their claims. How indeed is it that we were never told about this? Why no movies or constant mentions every single day like the Hoax? Also, the virtual voice was pretty good, better than many narrators I've heard. The only mistake it made was pronouncing "Polish" like furniture polish.

One of the best books I've listened to

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
is a stone cold brilliant memoir of a devout American Communist who moved to the Soviet Union in the mid-30s and then spent around 20 years in work camps and internal exile. just an excellent heart-rending book

Life in the USSR

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked the star of the story. He was a young and impressionable kid who just so happened to end up in Russia at the worst possible time. The story is insane and hard to imagine. It is a fascinating subject overall.

Fascinating and surreal

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.