The Pongracic family’s tale of escape from Communism involves gangrene, Russell Kirk, and ultimately freedom, as Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic explained in his speech, “Growing Up Under Communism & Coming to America,” hosted by the Classical Liberal Organization Oct. 24.

Pongracic detailed his childhood and early teen years living in Croatia, located in the former Yugoslavia, which was under a communist regime.

According to Pongracic, his life in Yugoslavia was often prosperous due to the financial help that Yugoslavia received from the West.

“When an outsider is showering you with money, communism can look pretty good,” Pongracic said. “In fact, the ’70s was really a golden time. There was so much wealth in the country.”

Despite the relative ease of life in Yugoslavia, Pongracic said he and his family began to notice signs of the communist system failing. According to Pongracic, he suffered a medical emergency at 11 years old, which doctors refused to treat properly.

“My father told the doctors that I was in trouble and asked them to take a look,” Pongracic said. “They looked for two seconds and said ‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s healing.’ So my dad gave up. As we were leaving, this elderly female doctor ran over and asked to take a look. She actually examined my leg, and she told us that it was a week away from gangrene setting in. My left leg was a week away from being gone.”

Pongracic said the death of Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in 1980 led to Western powers pulling resources out of Yugoslavia. That was when his father realized the country was headed for a financial collapse.

“At that point, Yugoslavia was in massive debt and my dad was a public auditor for the state of Croatia,” Pongracic said. “He would go around and look at the books of all the socialist enterprises. He would look at these books, and these books looked terrible for every one of these enterprises. My dad started getting seriously concerned.”

Pongracic said his father admired the idea of America and started pursuing U.S. citizenship. According to Pongracic, his father attended a conference held at Grove City College, where Russell Kirk was giving a lecture.

“He worked up the courage to actually approach Russell,” Pongracic said. “Russell actually invited my dad to stay at his home in Michigan. That opened the doors for my family’s arrival to the U.S.”

Pongracic said Kirk and his family took them in during their first few years in the United States.

Sophomore Brian Shia, president of the Classical Liberal Organization, said while Pongracic’s talk was mostly focused on communism, it showed the success of capitalism as well.

“Dr. Pongracic has good observations on how communist systems work fundamentally,” said Shia. “He never talked specifically on how capitalism or free markets work, but he made a strong case for free markets.”

Senior Gwen Thompson said she enjoyed hearing about the effects of communism from Pongracic’s personal perspective.

“I think personal stories help us look beyond statistics and generalizations,” Thompson said. “It’s easy to follow the history of policies and administrations, but we can’t forget the history of people and how they lived.”