My Russian father and German mother, who survived some of the worst wars and atrocities of the last century, came close to death many times. But I recently experienced a visual reminder of just how lucky they were, despite the many hardships they endured.

The Heritage Foundation is exhibiting a “new” collection of 50 paintings of the Soviet Gulag, the infamous penal system for political prisoners and slave laborers. They were painted over a 40-year period by Nikolai Getman, a Ukrainian who spent eight years in Soviet concentration camps in Siberia and Kolyma. His only crime was being present at a meeting of artists where one drew a caricature of Stalin on a cigarette box.

After Getman was released in 1953, he began secretly to paint a series of pictures about life in the Gulag. He told no one about his paintings -- not even his wife -- knowing that if they were discovered, he would be imprisoned again or perhaps even killed.

The paintings were rescued in 1997 and brought out of Russia. Getman was desperate to get them safely into the West because he feared