People Who've Escaped Authoritarian Governments Are Sharing When They KNEW It Was Time To Leave, And Sadly This Is Starting To Feel More And More Relevant

Yahoo

09-05-2025

Due to the state of, well, everything in the world right now, the topics of authoritarian governments are on everybody's mind. Recently, Reddit user Free_Dimension1459 asked, "People who escaped authoritarian governments, when did you KNOW it was the right time for you to leave your country?"
Sadly, there were A LOT of replies. Here are some of the most compelling:
1."I remember asking my mom why she left the Philippines in the '70s. She explained the Ferdinand Marcos regime and how he declared martial law. She said when that was announced, she knew she had to leave. She had been working towards moving anyway, but she said that was her cue to hurry it up."
—duckface08
2."I'm from Myanmar (formerly Burma). Most of us young people left the country when they enacted the conscription law. Now you can't leave the country unless you've done military service — which essentially means until you die. There's a civil war going on, and they need more meat for the meat grinder."
—LordAdri123
3."I left Russia back in 2006. Everything was great back then (freedom of internet, foreign tourists, international brands, etc.), but I had a weird feeling it wouldn't last long. I cannot explain it. I visited my parents for a month in 2019, and it felt like the beginning of the end. Then came Covid, and the war."
"IKEA and McDonald's left the country, and flights were cancelled. The time I lived in Russia was a short window between the Soviet era and the prosperity of the 2000s. I'm a bird. I used my gut feeling to fly away."
—HAKAKAHO
4."I left the US in 2006. With the Patriot Act and several other infringements of citizens' rights, I felt it was the right time to leave."
—SeaDry1531
Related: Women Are Sharing The Surprising Things They Discovered About Men When They Got A Boyfriend, And The Responses Range From Hilarious To Actually Kind Of Heartbreaking
5."My grandad left Poland after he was thrown in a concentration camp and escaped. He was very clever and bilingual in German. He made it to the UK. He was 16 in 1939."
—Anonymous
6."The police started harassing people on the streets after a protest in Belarus. Some of them were killed, some injured. Thousands were imprisoned and tortured. It is still happening. When everything happened, I just took the first morning flight and left for another country."
"This is the short version; the full story is a bit more complicated, obviously."
—fromcityoftheSun
7."When I went to the market and found nothing at all but bones. When I had a gun pointed in my face and was robbed for the umpteenth time. When one of my neighbors got shot, and I heard his relatives screaming. When kids died around me in protests. When we got tear gassed and shot at by the National Guard. When the dictator was dancing salsa in a mandatory national transmission while he celebrated the death of protesters. I left Venezuela in 2016 and it still fucking hurts."
"I am blessed and privileged. I am grateful that out of sheer good luck, I got to escape via plane and not through the Darién Gap or a shoddy boat. Others are not that lucky. If you have money to spare, go to a Venezuelan-owned restaurant, help your local refugees, and donate to UNHCR or Doctors Without Borders."
—AmazingRise
8."I used to know a woman who was from Haiti. She said the right time to leave was in 1980 when the Tonton Macoute came for her husband, who was a political dissident. That was the last time she and the kids saw him."
—nmuncer
Related: "Something In My Head Said, 'Don't Get Up'": 16 Older Adults Reveal The Wildest Supernatural Encounters From Their Childhood
9."My grandfather, the bravest man I have ever known, fled Germany shortly before the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. He had been a lawyer and had arranged everyone's passports, hidden some gold away, and established a place for them to flee. The judiciary was already under the control of the regime. He took his wife and five children and crossed France into Belgium. By 1936, he was applying for asylum to multiple countries, including the US (where he knew people in the embassy). He was summarily denied."
"My family fled along the coast on foot, separating children and adults so they weren't all traveling together, hoping their odds were better that way. My grandmother and two aunts were caught and sent to the gas chambers at Treblinka. Mikhael was caught by the Gestapo in Southern France and summarily executed on the spot. Joseph developed pneumonia and died somewhere in northern Spain.
My grandfather and father were smuggled into Portugal, got onto a boat, and eventually made it to New Palestine. After the war, my grandfather had had enough of the Zionists, and he was finally granted a US immigration visa and came here in 1947. I was born on American soil in 1961."
—Pusfilledonut
10."We left Turkey after the 2016 coup. I think we did the right thing, but now we have another authoritarian government to deal with in the US."
—Sirenafeniks
11."My grandmother left Hungary when the hospital she worked at took a direct hit around the October Revolution. It was amazing what she and her family survived for love of country before that moment."
—violetx
12."My great grandma fled the USSR during the pogroms and settled in Germany. The day Hitler was elected, she and her husband starting packing and made a break for the US."
—RaySizzle16
13."My great-grandparents took their six kids and fled Scotland during the second Highland Clearance. They lost their land at bayonet point. My great-grandfather went from being an educated doctor in the Highlands to being a janitor here in the US because the British were determined to starve out the Scottish clans just like they did with the Irish."
—sunlitmoonlight1772
14."When Putin invaded Crimea, I accepted a job offer to move out of Russia. People around me didn't care much, and I realized that Putin knew he could do anything he wanted there because people wouldn't protest. I thought he would turn the country into a full-on dictatorship, and I was right."
—Vjuja
15."My mother and her parents left Bosnia in 1991 when the Iron Curtain fell and Yugoslavia started falling. They saw the whole conflict and genocides coming."
—femboyisbestboy
16."When Putin and Medvedev swapped positions as president and prime minister in 2012, my wife and I looked at each other and were like, 'yep, it's time to go.' Best decision ever."
—CanadianRussian74
17.And finally, a reminder to stay vigilant now more than ever: "I have read many accounts of people who lived in authoritarian governments, and most didn't notice until authoritarianism was already in full swing."
"Many seem to deny it until it affects them directly. Most people are just living their lives, and a lot of people consciously avoid the media as it's generally depressing. The first to leave are those who are paying attention."
—WXavierM
H/T r/AskReddit
Some replies have been edited for length and clarity.
Also in Internet Finds: People Revealed The Creepiest, Cult-Like Towns In The United States And, Jesus Christ, It's Icky
Also in Internet Finds: 27 Extremely Disturbing Wikipedia Pages That Will Haunt Your Dreams Until The End Of Your Days
Also in Internet Finds: 101 People Who Woke Up One Morning And Promptly Had The Most Painfully Awkward And Embarrassing Day In Human History