Everyone was "too far" and no one wanted to be close, it was more of a death sentence than anything else, not a good price for not that much better life. You're

Everyone was "too far" and no one wanted to be close, it was more of a death sentence than anything else, not a good price for not that much better life. You're talking at most about hundreds of people - out of hundreds of millions (in the Eastern Bloc as a whole).