Eleven Years in Soviet Prison Camp

share from : Heru Pramono, to : Nurul Candrasari Masykuri
 Monday, May 3, 2010 at 12:11am

By:
Elinor Lipper


This story is unbelievable, but true, explanation of the author’s experience as a prisoner of the Soviet Union. In 1931 Ellinor Lipper, Belgian born, a Swiss national by marriage, became a communist. Hoping to find the fulfillment of her socialist ideals, she moved to Russia in 1937. After two months in Moskow, she was arrested during the “great Purge”. Then She started her eleven years in the darkness of ten Soviet prisons. In this book she reports the story of the Soviet prison world. Life in a collective cell, transfer in a cattle car to Vlodisvostok and then by boat to Kolyma, where she spent eight years in the “silent of Siberia graveyards”. Ellinor Lipper returned from Siberia. This book is her message to the world.

How She Came to The Soviet Union

She came to Russia because she was interested in that country after she heard that country is interesting country where there were no longer any rich people or poor people, where all received just as much money as they needed for food and clothing. A social order where there was no desire or cause for crime because all men were assured a way to earn a wage that would enable them to live with the dignity of human beings.

Then in 1937 she moved to Russia. There she worked for two month in a publishing house, after two months she was arrested. Nothing she had done, said or planned could have justified her arrest.


The Prisoners of her Cell

In 1937 and 1938 about half of the prisoners were Communist Party members or Young Communist. Trotsky followers, and many of them were foreigners.

In Machinery of Justice

Usually a soviet citizen charged with counter-revolutionary activity is arrested on basis of a paper signed by the state attorney. All those arrested are classed under section 58 of the criminal law: Counter-revolution. The Trotsky followers sometimes were arrested not only her husband but all family too. The prisoners forced to signed paper, which had been written by many illegal activity of the prisoners, it was a witness. Then they condemned in prison for many year, or get capital sentence.

The Children’s Organization
The children who were their parent were arrested, the most of them were innocent, established an organization for issuing a paper protesting the arrest of their parents, but it was ended with desperate. Many of the children were arrested.

The Transfer

After several weeks in the cell Ellinor was transferred to Camp. There are kinds of camps:
1. Near-camps in European Russia
2. Distant-Camp in Siberia and Central Asia
3. Remote-camps in the Artic regions and the far northeast.

When She was transferred she got many difficulties cause of starving, bad cattle car and train. Her condition was terrible.

She Arrived in Vlodisvostok

On the thirty-fifth day the train stopped, the door opened and the guards shouted, “All of you, get your things and get out”. She came to Vlodisvostok, a transfer camp.

The condition of this camp was so terrible. Its barracks were so full of the bed insects that sleep was almost impossible at night, when the creatures are most active.

Ships

Everyone in the transfer camp of Vladisvostok had to resign them selves to being shipped off to Kolyma, sooner, or later. In May 1939 the transferring was started. During the entire trip, no member of the guard or the ship’s crew ever entered the prisoners’ section. They were afraid. So, in that time the criminals were to be the rulers. During the trip many of the counter-revolutionaries attempt to kill themselves.

In 1944 several hundred young girls came to Kolyma. They were sent out for absences without permit from a war factory, or for some similar offense. One night, the men criminals got to guard, who was posted on the stairs to her section, to send over a few women for them. They paid the guard in bread they had stolen from their fellow prisoners.

Kolyma

She Arrived in Magadan

She was in Kolyma where she was to spend eight years of her life. She and the others prisoners marched along Stalin Street, one of the main street, at that time rough and not finished. In the terrible prison they all dressed in the same thick dart coat and with a head cover of black-and-white checked cotton.

Through the gate she saw figures in the camp and soon she mixed with the others. They shared their hunger, shared labor, shared lost of hope and stern silence, and so on.

They Developed Kolyma

Kolyma, a region in the northeast part of Siberia, is named after the Kolyma River. Its borers are on the north, the Artic Ocean, on the east, the Sea of Knots, and arm of the Pacific, on the south and west, lush, never cut forests (taiga). There was no road rail into the area. On Russian maps it is marked as being directly under the authority of the Executive Committee of Ministry of the Interior (NKVD). There is no civil authority.

It is a region of vast of forest, enormous swamps, round hills, the entire area divided by great rivers. In this region is two weeks of spring are followed by three hot summer months, then two weeks of fall and eight months of winter with its terrible cold. This is terrible place.

In this place was famous with gold mining, so the prisoner must produce gold. Their task was to produce gold out of this empty space, out of the never cut forest and the ice. They in very poor condition, they must work so hard, but they did not get enough food, warm dress, and paid enough. That was the picture of the labor camp.

The other duty of prisoners was to open the forests and made broad highway. It runs for hundreds of miles through the entire country. That highway, built on the bones of thousands of prisoners, run from Magadan across to Indigirka, the gold mines territory, from there it runs across to the Aldan, and the capital of Yakutsk. As yet it can be used only in winter when the ground is frozen.

As long as she stayed in that camp the person who put in charge of Kolyma had changed three times. They are Benzin, Garanin, and Vysheyevetsky.

In 1937 wave of terror also crushed the rulers of the Kolyma. When Yagoda, head of the NKVD, fell, his whole organization fell with him. Benzin was arrested then sent to Moscow and shot.

Garanin was estimated had the deaths of some twenty-six thousand persons on his conscience. Twenty-six thousands people were killed in one year before the alarming reports of some who assisted Garanin forced Masco to act. He was finally recalled. He was given fifteen years of prison labor then he was shot. Along with him his chief in Mosco, Yeshov, also vanished. He was responsible for condemning millions of innocent persons.

Vyshnyevetsky succeeded Garanin and served as chief of Kolyma from 1938 to 1941. No change was made in treatment, clothing, or food for prisoners, but the quickly trials and shootings of prisoners without trial ended. The death rate among the prisoners reminded at average 30 percent.

Women’s Camp
Into Taiga

Each morning at the Magadan women’s camp the labor groups went out and worked in mining areas or state plantations. Their condition was so terrible. Because of lack of food sometimes the starving prisoners stole the vegetables from plantation to eat, but if the guard knew that they were to send into the wild forests, Taiga. It was the very word was filled with horror.

Ellinor was to send in Taiga when the guard found five potatoes in his cloth because she was very hungry, but that incident caused her to send in Taiga for about there months. It was dangerous place.

The Children’s House

The children come into the world in the prison hospital. For a week mother and children stay together. Then the mother is sent away from hospital and the child taken in the children’s house. The mother did not work until one month. Then the mother is sent to work fairly near the children’s house.

The meeting of the mothers with their children was limited, so the smaller children forgot their mothers from one visit to the next. If they were begging to become friends again the guard asked them to move because the time was up. After that the children are always crying and the mother too.

Elgen Main Camp

Elgen women’s regimen camp is in three hundred and twenty-five miles northwest of the Magadan port. It was a more severe system, or reform camp. There were two rows of barbed wired outside the wood fancy. Inside the camp there were also two rows of barbed wire. If prisoners approach closer than a yard to them the guard might shoot without warning. At the corners were wooden watching tower. In that camp was found the huge red letter says” Long live the great Stalin”.

She was been there when she was in the fourth year of her term in Kolyma. This was not punish he, but because she was a foreigner. The barracks where she lived were about sixty-five feet long and twenty-two feet wide. It was for about one hundred prisoners. In this barrack if a prisoner did not develop stomach trouble from the food, she developed it from the daily problem of drying her cloth. If she came from camp for working at night, soaking wet, frozen, and exhausted, but she must rush to get stove and good place to dry their thing. The bread and tea were far from sufficient. In the morning she must wake up for marching to the camp. This was her daily activity as a prisoner there.

Nuns, Thieves, “Business”, and Lovers

According to article 124 of the constitution of The USSR said that “for the purpose of assuring freedom of conscience to the citizen of the USSR the church is separated from the state and schools from the church. The freedom to practice religious ceremonies and freedom to attack religious beliefs is extended to all citizens”

During the war (the second world war), the rulers of the USSR remembered God, although before the war the communist attacked the Russian village and they had not remained religious, but many of the Soviet prisoners had not lost their faith. During the war the high church officials who were still alive were release from their camps and restores to office. They prayed for the Little Father Stalin as they had formerly prayed for the Emperor. But after the war the condition changed again.

Dishonesty

Al property in the Soviet Union was state property. If there were reasonable satisfactory production and a just distribution of the great wealth of the country, the Soviet Union could provide a good life for its citizens. But the rate of production was miserable because of the unhealthy condition in which the most of people live. The cloth and even wool blankets, which during the war were imported from America for the use of the prisoners, never came to the prisoners.

What was true of Soviet life was doubly true with regard to the good intended for prisoners. Everyone who has anything to do with supplies tries to make a profit out of them. For private benefit camp commanders make free use of prisoners in charge as tailors, painters, skilled workers, doctors and so on. All tricks were practiced.

Every few years a high commission used to from Moscow, but the local rulers had served him with interest anything such as: liquor, luxurious car, and tasty food. As long as the commissioner in Kolyma, the prisoner must wear the good enough uniform, food and stayed in the barrack along day. The prisoners who complained were sent away to the most terrible of the gold mines or to the most remote forest camps, where they lose forever all desire to seek justice in the Soviet Union.

Love in Kolyma

About eight to a hundred thousand men prisoners are delivered to Kolyma every year, but only about five hundred women prisoners. The prisoners are not allowed to have any relations with the opposite sex. Their camps are completely separate.

Near the large women’s camp in Elgen, there was a small men’s camp. Thus men and women prisoners meet at their place of work. There have been cases where women criminals attempted to make sex attacks on these sick men. But, the average male prisoner in Kalyma had had no great sex problem. His whole system is exhausted by the severe physical labor, and his starved body desires only one thing – bread.

Shortly after the war an appeal went out to Young Communist girls to dedicate their energies to construction in Kolyma. Because the lack of girls several hundred European Russia girls are sent to there, actually that girls dedicated to go because they attracted to help their country. The newspaper spoke with the brave girls, but the really the were “sold out” in no time. After their arrival the rate of sex disease went up so sharply that some girls had to be locked up in hospitals by force.

The Stages of Terror

Fear is the greatest factor in the life of the Soviet Union. The free citizen is afraid of being put under suspicion. Political conversations are avoided and prisoners are afraid to discuss politics because such conversations might bring an addition to their terms, or even worse punishment. The name of Stalin is used only at public meetings. Life was frightening.

The Life of Slave

When she is first arrested she is relieved of all the money she has with her. She is given a written note for it, which she can use to buy food twice a month from the prison store, to the amount of fifty rubbles a month. Their relatives are permitted to send her fifty rubles a month, but food and clothing packages are not accepted. But, many of the prisoners had no money and they remained in a transfer camp, which might be for half a year pr more.

Food for Prisoners

The food ration of the prisoners was not far enough from the calorie need. Their breakfast consist of half a herring or 1.75 ounces of salt fish; sweet tea; one-third of the bread allowance, and their lunch just consist of cabbage leaf soup, eight ounces; crushed grain; one-third of the bread allowance. Then, supper only consist of leaf soup, eight ounces; a Small amount of some grain; One-third of the bread allowance.

The most of the prisoners were not only lack of food but lack of Vitamin C also. It caused them stole the fruit from plantation. If the caught by the guard they were sent to terrible camps. And the other effect was their ration was reduced.

Self Injury

For avoiding the heavy work they pretended to have back trouble, but a great many prisoners pretended they were crazy, some for years. Then they sent to mentally sick prisoners, but although they were real mental disease was not sufficient for the release of a prisoner in the Soviet Union. The last way out was killing themselves. This way was never chosen by criminal, but it was taken bay male counter-revolutionaries, and less frequently by female counter-revolutionaries.

Wallace in Magadan

None of the numerous high commissions ever caused so much excited as Henry Wallace’s visit to Kolyma during the war. During his visit everything was good, even to honor him the wooden watching towers were torn down in one night, but after he went home and wrote his report with interest for Soviet Asia. Everything was backed the wooden watching towers were put up again.

After The War

After the war the commander of the guard handed her a slip of paper at evening roll cal and asked her to sign. It read “The prisoner, Ellinor Lipper, condemned to five years in reform labor camp, has completed her term of punishment. However, she is to be kept in camp until the end of the war. She has been informed of this decision”. She should to release, but she must wait until six years.

Finally after she stayed in jail for eleven years, she was released. The Soviet Union paid a released prisoner’s travel expenses from the camp to his place of settlement.

The Road Back

She was shipped with mass of people in darkness ship. In ship the condition was so terrible. The released prisoner who never saw the women stared hungrily at the women. At night they took turns on one of the women, without shame, barely covered by a tore blacked, while the rest looked on hungrily. Ellinor was the other woman. She hid in her little space, and she was not able to sleep for fear. She must beat of hungry.

She arrived at Bukhta Nakhodka, a place for prisoners being moved. She ate a farewell soup of spoiled potatoes with had a horrible smell. They stayed with crowded people. Next day she marched and entered to the prison car.

She suffered the tortures of prison cars and transfer prisoners for more than two months before she reached Kazakhtan. The condition of the prisoners was so terrible. They were sick, many of them suffering from dysentery from their meals of black breed, salt fish, and unboiled water. They were allowed out to the toilet only one for twenty-for hours.

After a day’s journey the came to Vladivostok prison. She spent ten days in that prison. Then she was loaded into the prison car again. Then She transferred to Khabarovsk prison. From this place she transferred by train for five days to Irkutsk. This prison was ill reputation since the days of the Tsar. Her next stop after several days of travel was a cell in the transfer prison of Novosibirsk. In the worst condition she transferred to Chelyabinks. Then after four more days she marched for five miles back to rail station and the prison car, in one day she came in Orenburg. Five miles from Orenburg she was unloded again and marched to Sol-Ilyetsk. Then she went by train to Akyubink. In this place was German camp. She stayed near to Nazis from East Prussia and Upper Silisia who had arrested and bought there immediately after the Soviet troops marched into those areas.

She stayed in the camp until fall and spent three weeks being shipped in a cattle car. But her dreams of early freedom ended in transfer camp in Brest-Litovosk. There She spent another half year while her papers were once more being checked over. However, at last day came when She rolled across the Russio-Polish frontier in cattle car. Five day later she was unloaded in Frankfurt. She passed through the gate of three different transfer camps in the Russia Zone of Germany. And then, one day on June day in 1948, a flight in an America plane finally ended her eleven years in Soviet prisons and camps.