Getting a bit of context

So having read the chatty book on St John Paul II, it's time to get some perspective on post-war Europe, behind the Iron Curtain.

Enter Anne Applebaum.

Didn't know quite how many people were arrested by the NKVD, post-45, how many people disappeared into the Gulag system or were placed in newly vacated German concentration camps.

Then there's the huge population movements as those pesky millions who live the wrong side of the border or who are ethnically German or perhaps have a German surname, but haven't spoken German for a few generations get booted about the place.

And I've only read the first third.