Ukrainian artist Nikolai Getman spent nearly eight years in a Soviet prison camp after dutifully serving his country during World War II. He was arrested in 1945 for an anti-government "crime" when an informer reported that one of his friends had drawn a caricature of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Getman didn't put away his memories after his release; instead, he spent the next four decades secretly recording his experiences in oils on canvas.

More educational than artistic in value, his 50 paintings are on display at the conservative Heritage Foundation to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Their scenes of forced labor, starvation and torture are significant in being among the few visual images to relate the horrors of the Soviet penal system known as the Gulag.

Read the full article at the Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/09/art-inside-the-gulag/