Selected text
By the beginning of 1942 more than half of the Estonians had died in the camp. The prisoners were made to dig holes two meters deep not far from the barracks. It was especially hard in winter, when the temperatures were minus 40-50° Celsius and the earth got frozen up to two meters. About 50 naked corpses were put in each one of the holes, then they put earth over it and evened out the land for nobody to ever find their kin.
Any very minor misdemeanor resulted in a lock-up. It was as frosty there as outside. There was an icy iron bed there. There were no bags or blankets, nothing to speak of linen. There was an outbreak of dysentery in the camp. The sick ones were put in the sanitary unit. They were lying there on the oil cloth in their own defecations. There was no medicine, no medical aid at all. Those people couldn’t eat anything, but they brought them rations. Those prisoners who were working as nurses there were able to survive having those rations – small pieces of bread.
NKVD officers in the camp had to show that they worked very hard. People fought in the lines, but they in the rear. Thus, they had to show that they disclosed some things, their activity. They had to justify their earnings. So, they blamed the prisoners for organizing an uprising.
People from the camp were called for interrogations, and they had them confess that they organized the rebellion. They were beaten black and blue, summoned at night, tormented in all kinds of ways. People were tortured, they put a board against their feet and beat and hammered them. A man couldn’t walk after such an interrogation.
Can emaciated, weakened people be blamed for not withstanding the ordeal and finally assuming their guilt? How could they have instigated a mutiny if they couldn’t even stand on their feet?
The contingent of the camp prisoners changed constantly: people were buried while others were brought in. Nobody believed that it would be possible to survive in such a hell. In actuality, very few survived – those who worked as nurses or were involved in other work on the territory of the camp. None survived out of those who were felling trees. The say that by 1943 most exiled people from Estonia had died.
Any very minor misdemeanor resulted in a lock-up. It was as frosty there as outside. There was an icy iron bed there. There were no bags or blankets, nothing to speak of linen. There was an outbreak of dysentery in the camp. The sick ones were put in the sanitary unit. They were lying there on the oil cloth in their own defecations. There was no medicine, no medical aid at all. Those people couldn’t eat anything, but they brought them rations. Those prisoners who were working as nurses there were able to survive having those rations – small pieces of bread.
NKVD officers in the camp had to show that they worked very hard. People fought in the lines, but they in the rear. Thus, they had to show that they disclosed some things, their activity. They had to justify their earnings. So, they blamed the prisoners for organizing an uprising.
People from the camp were called for interrogations, and they had them confess that they organized the rebellion. They were beaten black and blue, summoned at night, tormented in all kinds of ways. People were tortured, they put a board against their feet and beat and hammered them. A man couldn’t walk after such an interrogation.
Can emaciated, weakened people be blamed for not withstanding the ordeal and finally assuming their guilt? How could they have instigated a mutiny if they couldn’t even stand on their feet?
The contingent of the camp prisoners changed constantly: people were buried while others were brought in. Nobody believed that it would be possible to survive in such a hell. In actuality, very few survived – those who worked as nurses or were involved in other work on the territory of the camp. None survived out of those who were felling trees. The say that by 1943 most exiled people from Estonia had died.
Period
Year
1943
Location
Russia
Interview
Ronny Sheyn-Kuznetsova