The Grit and Determination I Share with Uncle Vic — Despite Never Meeting Him or Fully Understanding What He Went Through

I’ve been applying for a bunch of jobs in sports lately. I’m open to every team—even the ones I don’t really follow, or sports I’m not crazy about. I just want the right opportunity. But lately, I’ve been thinking more about family—about the stories that used to get tossed around at the dinner table that never hit me the way they do now.

On my mom’s side, we had a cousin named Betty Herman who was basically our family historian. She could trace our Jewish roots back generations, and anytime family history came up, Uncle Vic’s story was always part of the conversation. That was just normal. It was never presented like some big, heavy thing—just, “Yeah, your Uncle Vic went to the Gulag after his dad got sent to work in Russia for Ford—because he wouldn’t claim Soviet citizenship just to put their name on his world record.” Like… that was just a Tuesday for the Hermans.

Victor Herman—Betty Herman’s cousin, and my Grandma Betty’s uncle—was the son of Samuel Herman, who worked for Henry Ford. In 1931, Ford made a deal with the Soviets and sent 300 American workers and their families to Gorky, Russia to help build an automobile factory. Samuel was one of them, so the entire Herman family moved overseas.

Victor lost his mom shortly after they got there. Instead of falling apart, he adapted. He was a standout athlete, and the Soviet Air Force recruited him. He learned how to parachute jump and eventually set a world record, earning the nickname “The Lindbergh of Russia.” His success caught Stalin’s attention, who wanted him to become a Soviet citizen. When Victor refused, he was arrested for treason. He was only in his early 20s.

Uncle Vic’s story was always around growing up, but we never really talked about what he went through. It was just kind of… there. Like, “Yeah, he was in the Gulag,” and that was it. No one ever got into the details—the brutal stuff, the hard reality of it all. It was treated like a fact, not a story filled with struggle or pain.

We did talk about his book and the movie made from it, but even then, it never really hit me how intense his experience was. I didn’t fully grasp how much he actually went through or how tough it had to be. But now, knowing more of the story, something about that quiet strength really sticks with me. The resilience and determination he had? I genuinely think that’s the kind of trait you inherit. It’s why I’m stubbornly determined and why I keep pushing, even when things get rough.

Like I said, it was always talked about so casually in our family. I didn’t really think about how extreme that was until years later, when I mentioned it to a coworker. I told him Victor even wrote a book, and he said, “Oh—before he went to the Gulag?” And I said, “No, after.” He looked at me like I had no idea what I was talking about. He said, “Nobody makes it out of the Gulag alive.”

We looked up his Wikipedia page, and my coworker was shocked to see that Victor really did spend 18 years in the Siberian Gulag—and somehow made it out alive. That’s when it hit me. I started reading more and realized just how brutal and inhumane that place really was. It made me feel sick—some of the things he had to do just to survive. I had never really let it sink in before—what surviving something like that actually meant. But Victor didn’t just survive. He came back. He rebuilt his life. And he never let what happened define him. He didn’t carry a victim mentality, and I honestly think that’s a big part of how he made it through.

After being exiled across Siberia with his wife and kids, he made it back to the U.S.—alone at first. Then, once they were allowed to leave, his family joined him.

About six months after returning, Victor was on welfare and living in his sister’s attic while his wife and kids remained behind the Iron Curtain. An attorney from Canton, Robert Greenstein, heard his story, took him on pro bono to bring his daughters to the U.S., and helped share Victor’s story with the media to build support for the book he was writing. What followed was far bigger than anyone expected.

Years later, Victor fought back and sued Ford for abandoning him and so many other American workers left stranded in Russia. It wasn’t about money—it was about getting some kind of justice and making sure the world knew what really happened. At first, Ford refused to even acknowledge that Victor’s dad had worked for them. The case went through several courts and appeals. In the end, Victor won—but the settlement fell short of what he hoped for and couldn’t undo all the pain he and so many other Americans endured.

But we know what happened.

Honestly, I don’t really know how to feel about potentially working for an organization tied to that part of my family’s history. On one hand, it feels complicated, knowing everything Uncle Vic and so many others went through because of decisions made back then. On the other hand, I wasn’t there. The people directly involved aren’t around anymore, and I never had the chance to meet him. I didn’t live that history. But it still happened to family—and family is everything.

Victor didn’t let bitterness control his life. He told the truth, fought for justice, and moved forward. That’s the legacy he left behind, and it’s hard to say how he’d feel about this now.

So yeah, I’m torn. Maybe taking this kind of opportunity wouldn’t be seen as turning my back on family. Maybe it’s a way to acknowledge the past while choosing not to be stuck in it. I want to carry that forward—and do something good with it.

Uncle Vic’s story isn’t just history. It’s a reminder: resilience is real, it’s inherited, and it’s what’s driving me forward. No matter what happens next, I’m ready.