Former Hillsdale Professor of Politics Aleksandras Shtromas lived under two of the greatest tyrannies in the history of mankind. The horrors of the Nazi regime and Soviet Union were matched only by his courage, intelligence, and perseverance.
Shtromas brought this unmatched, firsthand experience to his students.
“After everything he had been through, he used to say he was grateful to Hillsdale for providing him with such a boring job,” Professor of Politics Mickey Craig said.
Hillsdale grad Erik Prince ’92 was one such pupil who was immensely influenced by the teaching of Shtromas, who passed away from lung cancer in 1999.
“Hearing Shtromas talk about the politics of the Soviet Union, the inner circle, and the Politburo, knowing many of the people that were there was a phenomenal insight into that major part of world history,” Prince told the Collegian in October.
Former Hillsdale professor and current Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel Richard Ebeling was a close friend of Shtromas’ when the two taught at Hillsdale. They traveled to parts of Eastern Europe together.
“It was commonly taken for granted that you either loved Professor Shtromas or you hated him. Nobody questioned or challenged his fairness in grading students, but he was very challenging,” Ebeling said.
Shtromas was a bit of a libertarian who did not conform to classroom rules, Craig said. Ebeling said he was a night person, and during his night classes, he would smoke during the break inside the classroom building.
“He was a free spirit,” Ebeling acknowledged.
Shtromas’ life was marked by a rebellious streak. When the Nazis invaded Lithuania, Shtromas, his mother, and his sister were forced to live in the Vilijampole Ghetto and concentration camp near Kaunas, Lithuania. The Nazis killed Shtromas’ father just after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
“Him and his sister were smuggled out and hidden in the countryside by a Christian Lithuanian family who felt a religious and moral calling to protect Jewish Lithuanians. Alex, seven years old, kept going back to the city and sneaking into the ghetto to see his mother. His mother tried to stop him from coming by saying, ‘I don’t love you, I never want to seer you again.’ She eventually committed suicide to keep him from returning to the ghetto. Those are the sacrifices a loving parent will sometimes do to save a child,” Ebeling said.
After the war, the Russians had reoccupied Lithuania. Ebeling said that Shtromas was roaming the streets of Kaunus when a Soviet general saw him and asked him who he was. When Shtromas explained that his parents were both dead and that his last name was Shtromas, the general was aghast.
“Your father saved my life before the Second World War,” Ebeling said the general stuttered.
That general took Shtromas in as an adopted son, and then the general became appointed head of the Lithuanian Soviet Communist Party by Joseph Stalin.
“Alex grew up as the adopted son of the head of the country. Fate takes weird twists,” Ebeling said.
Shtromas studied law at the University of Moscow, where Mikhail Gorbachev was his classmate. By the 1960s, Shtromas came to know a number of Russian intellectuals who were involved in the criticism and questioning of the Communist system. People in those circles were finally told to leave the country, Ebeling said.
“Fortunately, since his sister was in England and married to a successful British businessman, Alex was able to contact people in Britain’s foreign ministry and get a visa,” Ebeling said.
Shtromas met his wife, Violetta, also Lithuanian, during his time in England.
Shtromas would later tell journalism David Satter about his experiences.
“I knew him back in the 1980s,” Satter said. “I was working on a book about the fall of the Soviet Union. He told me about his early experiences. He told me about the atmosphere in that house, and growing up, in Lithuania. We became friends.”
Ebeling recalled how Shtromas introduced him to his wife.
“We were traveling on a trip there in the spring of 1991. The actual date was the third week of May 1991, and we were in Moscow and we were attending a conference there before going on to Lithuania. Through some mutual friends of Dr. Shtromas’ at the conference, I happened to meet the woman who became my future wife,” Ebeling said. “We knew each other for three days and just in three days we knew we wanted to be married. It was kind of a whirlwind love at first sight thing.”
Craig interviewed Shtromas and convinced him to become a full-time Hillsdale professor in 1988, after meeting him at an American Political Science Association conference. Sadly, Shtromas died ten years later at age 68, while teaching at Hillsdale. He was replaced by Will Morrisey.
He is still remembered for his love of life, his nearly-photographic memory, and the high standards he held for all his students.