On a Soviet postcard imprinted with a red broom sweeping away "enemies of the people", father Jasch pleads for his family in prison.

So far, Jasch has been a survivor. When he was born in 1885, infant mortality rates were extremely high. He was the only survivor of six children. His mother died ten years later. His father married his wife's younger sister and they had six more children. One of these younger half-siblings was Liese Regehr Bargen who fled to Canada in 1929 and saved the letters in a Campbell's Soup box.

As a young "conscientious objector" loyal to his pacifist beliefs, Jasch served in the Medical Corp during World War One. At 26, he married lovely Maria Goosen. Six children filled their house in Altonau.

Immediately after the family's attempt to escape to Canada in 1929, Jasch was arrested. Although Maria was allowed to visit him and occasionally bring him food, he was weak and emaciated from the beatings, nightly interrogations and meager food rations.

He survived his eight-month term. Escorted by guards in June 1931, Jasch was taken to the granary where his family was held. He joined them on the nine-day train journey to the northern Ural region. In the prison camp, typhus and malnutrition further weakened his body. He tried to work to earn more bread rations, but he grew weaker. Typhus is a menacing disease transmitted by fleas, lice and bed bugs. Days of pain, fever and muscle spasms bound him to the hard wooden platform in the barrack. Yet Jasch worked whenever he could. Desperation drove him.

Jasch Regehr died in a prison camp named Tarabunka on October 8, 1933. Maria dragged his wasted body from the barracks and buried him in the frozen primeval forest.