Original sentence: A son of a former Nazi who was sent to a Soviet Gulag, Gauck's political life was formed by his own family's experiences with totalitarianism.Both his father and mother were Nazi party members, with mother joining NSDAP in 1932 and father joining the Nazis in 1934</ref>  Following the Soviet occupation at the end of World War II, the communists were installed into power in what became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
Edited sentence: A son of a survivor of a Soviet Gulag, Gauck's political life was formed by his own family's experiences with totalitarianism.Following the Soviet occupation at the end of World War II, the communists were installed into power in what became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).The family were victims of Soviet persecution