People Who Escaped Authoritarian Governments Share How They Knew It Was Time To Go

A recent marked rise in fascist movements and authoritarian governments has been on a lot of people's minds lately. But such regimes came and went throughout our human history.

To paraphrase a common saying, those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

So what can we learn from the people who lived under totalitarianism?

Reddit user Free_Dimension1459 asked:

"People who escaped authoritarian governments, when did you KNOW it was the right time for you to leave your country?"

Spain

"My late father was a young child during the Spanish Civil War. He was the youngest of a large family. During the war he lost 10 siblings, some to bombs (his 8 year old sister suffocated under the rubble, other family members died to illness, others to injuries)."

During the fall of Barcelona, my uncle who had the audacity to fight against Franco, walked with approximately half a million to one million people to the French border. My uncle was placed in a concentration camp."

"My uncle was unable to escape from the concentration camp. I think the only reason he survived was he 18 years old, healthy, and smart. When he finally returned to his small town he told off the town priest and a couple of nuns. He renounced his religion."

"This was a big deal during that time in history. He returned to Barcelona and against all odds became a successful businessman, found love, and had children. My aunts never spoke to him again."

"When the fascists won, the reprisals began."

"When my father was in his late teens he realised that there wasn’t a future for him in Spain so he worked his way across the world on a Greek freighter."

When I was young adult I vowed to never set foot in Spain. Too much emotional pain and bloodshed for me."

"Obviously with therapy, maturity, and the passage of time, I changed my mind and I have been to Spain numerous times. I despise fascism and do not believe violence is the answer to anything. As did my parents and their parents."

~ EarthNeat9076

Philippines

"Not me but I remember asking my mom why she left the Philippines in the 70s. She explained about the Marcos regime and how he declared martial law."

"She said when that was announced, she knew she had to leave. She had been working towards moving, anyway, but she said that was her cue to hurry it up."

~ duckface08

Myanmar/Burma

"I’m from Myanmar/Burma. Most of us young people left the country when they enacted the conscription law."

"Now, you can’t leave the country unless you’ve done military service, which in this case means until you die because there’s a civil war going on and they need more meat for the meat grinder."

~ LordAdri123

Poland

"My grandad left Poland after he was thrown in a concentration camp and escaped (he was very clever and bilingual in German). Made it to the UK. He was 16 in 1939."

"Him talking was probably the most important aspect of it (he built a relationship with the right person/people). But when I was little, he'd tell me some other stories too."

"The one I remember best was about a German soldier on the opposite bank of a river they needed to cross (he was either dead already or he killed him). Later on, they came across a river again, his companion was sure it was a different river."

"However, the dead German soldier was on the same side as him now, and that convinced them they'd just gotten lost. I think the moral of the story wasn't that he was a tough guy, it's that being panicked f*cks with your reasoning."

~ Reddit

Belarus

"The police just started harassing people on the streets after one of the protests in Belarus. Some of them got killed, some injured, thousands were imprisoned (and tortured there). It is still happening."

"Also, I kinda was prepared for that psychologically for a long time before the violence erupted, because it was concealed for years. So when everything happened, I just took the first morning flight and left for another country."

"This is in two words, the story is a bit more complicated, obviously."

~ fromcityoftheSun

Venezuela

"When I went to the market and found nothing at all but bones. When I was pointed at with a gun to my face to be robbed for the umpteenth time."

"When one of my neighbours got shot, hearing his relatives screaming. When kids died around me in protests. When we got tear gassed and shot at by the National Guards."

"When the Dictator was dancing Salsa in mandatory national transmission while he celebrated the death of protesters."

"I left Venezuela in 2016 and it still f*cking hurts."

~ AmazingRise

Vietnam

"My grandpa fought for the South Vietnamese. We left when the US soldiers abandoned their posts and my grandpa was left with orders to get the hell out. Went home, grabbed my grandma and his six kids and paid to get a boat to Indonesia."

"The US attacked our country and then abandoned all of the South. He fought for democracy in his country and then was abandoned by those US soldiers. He hated them for it and decided to emigrate to Australia instead."

"To this day I hate everything about the US politics and its war machine. With the state of the US now, I believe I am 100% justified and so was my grandpa."

~ DragonfruitGod

Iraq

"This was not me but my mom, right when the Iran-Iraq war ended. The very first day the border restrictions were lifted, my mom hopped on a bus with one bag from Baghdad to Jordan and never went back."

"It was very hard for her because she never thought she would ever leave but her whole family was leaving one by one all heading in different directions when they got the chance. She didn’t want to admit it but she wished she left sooner."

"Everything from all sectors was deteriorating, from education to city upkeep. The population of certain villages were disappearing without a trace (genocide). She even had a really bad gut feeling that something much worse was going to happen to Iraq and every sign told her to leave. Her gut feeling ended up right."

"Even my dad’s side realized too. My family is Christian and there are no minority rights in Iraq at the time and even now. In the early 2000s (I forgot the year), two of my uncles were kidnapped and brought to mosque and were given one week to pack up and leave because they were Christian.

"The only reason why they didn’t kill them was because they saw they had kids so they spared them. They left as fast as they could and went to Syria. Then boom, the civil war starts and had to leave soon after that, starting a new life in Canada."

~ polyobama

Haiti

"I used to know a cleaner whom was from Haiti."

"Right time was in 1980 when the Tonton Macoute came for her husband, a political dissident."

"That was the last time her and the kids saw him."

~ nmuncer

Hungary

"Speaking for my grandmother she left Hungary when the hospital she worked at took a direct hit around the October Revolution."

"It was amazing what she and her family survived for love of country before this."

~ violetx

Germany

"My grandfather, the bravest man I have ever known, fled Germany shortly before the Nuremberg Laws were passed in late 1935. He had been a lawyer and had arranged everyone's passports, hidden some gold away, and established a place for them to flee."

"The judiciary was already under control of the regime. He took his wife and five children and crossed France into Belgium, and by 1936 he was applying for asylum to multiple countries, including the US where he knew people in the Embassy. He was summarily denied."

"As they began invading Belgium in May of 1940, the family fled along the coast on foot, separating children and adult so as not to all be traveling together, hoping their odds were better . My grandmother and my two aunts were caught a few days into the trip and sent to the gas chambers at Treblinka."

"The eldest son, Mikhael, was caught foraging food by the Gestapo in southern France and summarily executed on the spot. My father, who was nine, his younger brother Joseph, and my grandfather fled into northern Spain and were hidden by the remnants of the Zamoristas in Catalonia."

"Joseph developed pneumonia and died somewhere in northern Spain. My grandfather and father were smuggled into Portugal, onto a boat, and eventually made it to New Palestine."

"After the war, my grandfather had had enough of the Zionists, and he was finally granted a US immigration visa and came here in 1947. I was born on American soil in 1961. I grew up hearing the stories."

~ usfilledonut

Russia 1905

"My great grandma fled Russia during the pogroms and settled in Germany."

"The day Hitler was elected she and her husband starting packing and made a break for the US."

~ RaySizzle16

Bosnia

"My mother and her parents left Bosnia in 1991 when the iron curtain came down and Yugoslavia started falling."

"They saw the whole conflict and genocides coming as the Serbs and the Croatians were, even under Yugoslavia, treating the Bosniaks worse."

~ femboyisbestboy

United States

"This morning when they started arresting judges."

"Like, I was already trying to leave, but that headline sent chills throughout my body."

~ parasyte_steve

Russia 2014

"When Putin invaded Crimea I accepted a job offer to move out from Russia. People around me didn’t care much, and I thought that Putin realized he could do anything and people wouldn’t protest."

"So I thought he would turn the country into a full on dictatorship, and I was right. I couldn’t even explain at that moment why I thought I had to leave."

"I was calling it my butt feeling, my butt needed to move out. I had a great job, and a nice house, and was doing well, everyone thought I was being weird."

~ Vjuja

A lot of people are reflecting on these issues right now. Have you or your family had any experience with living in a rise in fascism?