My father-in-law's parents were ethnic Germans from Ukraine, who came to the US in about 1907. His father always felt terribly guilty that he was not able to get other members of his family out -- it was tough enough to provide for his eight children during the Depression, and he died in 1935 (just checked his death date and a few days ago it was the 80th anniversary). My FIL started working on family history in his retirement and found that a number of relatives had been sent to gulags and so on.