I introduced myself as an American, and they plied me endlessly with questions about America. They had been part of the Red Army units which had joined up with the Americans in Germany; they constantly sang the praises of the American soldiers and couldn’t hear enough about life in America, which astonished and fascinated them. Others crowded around to hear about America, and pretty soon I was talking to more than half the prisoners in the car.
Once more, the thieves were a law unto themselves. The young ones stuck to Volkov like chicks to a mother hen, cleaned his bunk, swept the floor, washed his dishes, and did whatever else they were told. Otherwise, they were a rather unruly lot. Their noisy card and dice games usually ended in a fight which only Volkov could settle; his decision went unchallenged. If the young ones didn’t like it, they got battered around a bit, so they generally accepted his decision without a word.
Despite the fact we had been promised three meals a day, the kitchen cars were at the end of the train and the meals were brought only when we stopped long enough to allow the food to be carried from car to car. Sometimes we’d get a double portion of bread, which we were told must last for two days; most of the time we got our soup and kasha together, late in the afternoon, and we knew there’d be no supper and no stops that night. Water, too, was brought just once a day, so everyone drank as much as he could. Some of the soldiers still had their canteens, which they filled, and one bucket of water was left in the car all day.
Hygiene, of course, even in the most rudimentary sense of the word, was completely out of the question. Cleaning your teeth was impossible, fingernails were bitten off to keep the dirt from accumulating under them. Whenever fresh water was brought, we’d wash out our eyes with a handful scooped from the bucket to relieve the smarting from the dust in the air and the salt of our own sweat. It was on journeys like this that parasites abounded; after a few days on the road, everyone was continually scratching absentmindedly at some part of his anatomy. We also suffered from sores on our feet, backs, and buttocks, for there was no room for exercise and no opportunity to get out of the cars.
Somehow the thieves had learned we were headed for Krasnoyarsk, a large town on the Yenisei River crossed by the Trans-Siberian Railway, about midway across the vast expanse of Siberia. It may be 1,800 miles as the crow flies from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk, but it’s more like 2,500 miles as the tracks are laid. Passenger trains make the trip from Krasnoyarsk to Moscow in less than four days, about the same time and distance as from Chicago to Los Angeles. The same trip, however, took us over two weeks. If you consider that Vologda is near Moscow, and that Krasnoyarsk is less than halfway to the Pacific border of Russia across Siberia, you begin to get some idea of the huge land mass of the U.S.S.R.
When we found out we were headed for Krasnoyarsk, we tried to figure out the towns we’d have to pass on the Trans-Siberian Railway—Kirov, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Achinsk, and Krasnoyarsk. Those who knew anything about the towns would describe them so we could recognize them as we passed—or, really, just to have something to talk about. Much of our time was spent standing on the planks and craning our necks at the little windows near the top of the car to get a view of the countryside. The windows were never unoccupied, even at night.
For hours, there was nothing to see but open space, mainly marshlands with thick, rough hunks of grass called taiga, not hilly at all, but rolling away to the far-off mountains in the distance. Now and then, there would be a small shanty for the railroad crews who maintain this vital and only railroad link between the east and west. Towns were almost nonexistent. Those that did exist were practically all on the railroad line itself, or along the rivers and waterways which crisscross this part of the country everywhere. Except that it was so marshy, Siberia in 1946 reminded me of what the great American West must have looked like when the first railroad tracks were laid.
The towns usually consisted of one street, very muddy, lined with typical old Russian houses of logs or rough-hewn planks with plaster between the chinks. There were vegetable gardens around each home, and the land stretched away in all directions, but little of it was then under cultivation. We stopped only at the larger towns. It was during these stops that we received our meals, sometimes getting our complete daily ration all at once—600 grams of bread, a half liter of soup, and 200 grams of kasha.
Volkov was in charge of distributing the meals and he had his “boys” pass out the food. Each car was given only about ten tureens and wooden spoons, and three tin cups. We used them in turn. Volkov always served the political prisoners first, leveling off each ladleful with a knife to make sure there was no excess. What was left over in the kettle after this careful measuring, of course, went to him and the “boys.” The political prisoners protested. They wanted him to rotate the order of distribution, beginning with the political prisoners one day and the thieves the next. Volkov refused.
Things came to a head one day when we had stopped for dinner. The protest became so heated that a fight developed. Volkov and his “boys” got out their knives; the other prisoners tore up planks from the bunks. The doors, however, were open while the meals were served, so the guards stepped in quickly. After that, distribution of the food alternated, and we lived what might be best described as an armed truce.
For the most part, the monotony of the countryside was matched by the monotony of the trip itself. We had nothing to do, the cars were uncomfortable, and after the first few days conversation ran out. Everyone felt dirty, hot, and dusty; the doors weren’t snug, and there were cracks in the boards along the wall and in the heavy planking in the floor. By the time we reached Krasnoyarsk, everyone was black from the windblown dirt and soot. There were white holes in our faces where our red eyes peered out.
Early in July, we reached the end of the line. The countryside became hilly, the slopes were covered with thick forests of tall pines, evergreens, and hemlock. The railroad right-of-way led through many tunnels. It was early in the morning when we reached Krasnoyarsk, and everyone jammed the four little windows for a glimpse of the city on the Yenisei. The river actually divides the town in half, and until last year there was no bridge across the river except the railroad trestle. Communication between the two parts of the city was achieved by boat or ferry. The city itself, an important rail juncture at the head of the Yenisei, stretches out along both banks, something like St. Louis along the Mississippi or the two Kansas Cities on the Missouri.
We sat in the station at Krasnoyarsk almost an hour. Up ahead we could hear the sounds of prisoners being unloaded, dogs barking, and soldiers shouting commands. At last our door opened, the roll was called, and we jumped down one by one. My legs were weak from lack of exercise; they seemed made of rubber as we lined up in files of four. The guards of Vologda, who had accompanied us on the whole trip, herded us off again at that familiar quick pace. We stumbled along so quickly that one of the old shoes I was wearing fell off. I tried to get it, but the guard shouted at me to keep moving, my own bundle got in my way, and I lost the shoe.
We didn’t go through the town itself, but took the back roads to the transit prison outside of town. This was simply a large group of barracks in the open fields, surrounded by a double row of barbed wire. We marched through the prison gates to a large open compound in the middle of the barracks, where we were told to sit down and stay in our groups, and not to mingle with the other prisoners. After the fast pace of the march, on top of the more than two weeks of inactivity, we were glad enough to stretch out on the ground.
As I sat there drinking in the fresh air, another prisoner crept up to me with my shoe. He winked at me and muttered, “Tie it tighter next time,” then slipped back to his own group. He had braved a reprimand from the guards for his effort, and I was touched.
Here at last we got a bath and a haircut. Then we stood around, naked, but feeling human again, while our clothes were steamed and disinfected. With so many prisoners, the process took quite a while, but as each group finishe
d they got a kettle of soup. There were no spoons or tureens available, however, so some of the prisoners produced from their bundles old tin cans they had scavenged in the railroad yards, and we all shared those. They were rusty and leaky, but the first man shined his can with his cap or sleeve, licked it clean when he was finished, and passed it on to the next.
One of the Poles in our group, a happy-go-lucky fellow named Andre, gave me his can when he had finished. When I came back with my portion, he told me to eat it as fast as I could and follow him. He walked to the other side of the group, took off his coat, pulled a different shirt from his satchel, and went up for another portion. He gobbled it down and gave me the can again, but I was afraid to try it. I’d left my bundle with the group, so I had no change of clothing. “Go ahead,” said Andre, “we’re all new here and they can’t tell us apart.”
I was hungry enough to try it no matter what the consequences. When I stuck out my can, the orderly filled it without even looking at me. I was so surprised, I almost dropped the can on the ground. After I finished this portion, Andre went back and worked the game again. By this time, though, the kettle was getting low and the orderly was getting suspicious. I figured I’d be crowding my luck if I tried it again.
After the meal, a series of long tables were set up in the compound. One by one, our names were called out and we presented ourselves at the table to answer the routine questions, then get the once-over from the “board,” the officials of the transit camp and representatives of the camps up north who were down here “hiring” talent. It was terribly hot in the compound, and many of the prisoners had taken their shirts off to enjoy the sunlight. As I watched the processing, I was struck by how thin and emaciated everyone looked; I could hardly tell the difference between one man and the next. The experts at the table, though, knew what they were looking for and signified their choices to the camp officials.
Suddenly, I heard the commandant call, “Lypinski!” I went to the table; they asked my name and surname. “Lypinski,” I said, “Wladimir Martinovich.” “What’s this other name here?” said the commandant. “Ciszek,” I said, and tried to explain. He asked me the year I had been arrested, when I had been sentenced, and on what charge. When I told him “58:6,” he looked at the paper again. “Ah, a Vatican spy,” he said. “You go over there.”
I reported to a table where secretaries were filling in the various processing documents. They were prisoners, too, most of them former school teachers or bookkeepers. They had been kept here at Krasnoyarsk, instead of being sent on to the labor camps, to help with the paperwork—a big problem at this center from which prisoners were assigned to camps up north. One of the secretaries, who had heard the commandant call me a “Vatican spy,” was looking at me curiously. A young Jew from Lvov, he began talking to me in Polish out the side of his mouth all the while he was writing down the data in his papers.
“You’re slated for hard labor in Norilsk,” he told me. “Aren’t you a priest?” I nodded. “Listen,” he said, “you have a medical exam coming up and one of the main doctors is a Pole from Lida (a town near Albertin). Dr. Barovski. Do you know him?” I shook my head. “Well, remember his name and try to get to him when you take your physical. Let him know you’re a priest. He may be able to help you get an easier job, or even stay here at Krasnoyarsk instead of going north. I’ll probably see you again around the camp, but good luck!”
By this time the next prisoner was approaching his table and I had to move on. The guards immediately shoved me into line for the medical exam, which was held in a tent, a sort of canvas extension of the prison hospital. The flaps were open, but there was very little breeze, and the air in the tent was pungent with the smell of alcohol and ether. Most of the doctors, too, were prisoners who had been kept here at Krasnoyarsk because they were needed.
Each of them took a patient in turn as the line passed through. I kept trying to spot the Polish doctor from Lida. Finally, I asked one of the medical attendants, “Who’s Dr. Barovski?” I looked where he pointed, then stalled around trying to get into the doctor’s line. When he finished his next patient, the man ahead of me started toward him; I stepped around him and slipped toward the doctor’s cubicle. The man swore at me under his breath, but I didn’t even bother to turn my head. I just kept moving toward the doctor.
Dr. Barovski looked up at me and said in heavily accented Russian, “What ails you?” Although the doctors were prisoners, they were supervised by Russian women doctors and there were guards standing nearby, so I had to watch my step. “Heart trouble,” I said. Dr. Barovski began thumping my chest and listening with his stethoscope. “Does this hurt here?” he said in Russian. “Or here?” “No,” I said in Polish, “right here!”
The doctor looked up at me quickly, then glanced around to see who was nearby. When he turned back, I added in Latin, “Polonis sacerdos.” He nodded that he understood. With that, he began a lengthy, time-consuming examination, going over me inch by inch, muttering all the time in Polish under his breath as if he was talking to himself, but loud enough so that I could hear. He asked me where I was from and I said, “Albertin.” He said he had lived not far away in the town of Lida.
“I’m going to prescribe some drugs for you,” said the doctor, “so you can go into the dispensary with my secretary here.” I followed the young secretary into the dispensary. First he gave me three or four glasses of cold water, because I was beginning to feel weak from the broiling sun of the courtyard and the stifling atmosphere of the medical tent. He also gave me some vitamin pills to take with the water. Talking quickly, so the guard wouldn’t be suspicious if we stayed inside too long, he told me he was a priest who had been assigned at the doctor’s request to help him in the camp.
“The doctor,” he said, “will try to keep you, too. Good luck!”
As soon as I came out of the dispensary, a guard took me to a large temporary barrack with few windows and rows of double-decker bunks, where the transient prisoners were quartered while the groups were formed for the prison camps upriver. The few windows there were in the barrack were shut tight, the atmosphere was close and stifling, and the odor was foul. I was dismayed to find that I was one of the few political prisoners in the room. The rest were mostly young hoodlums and punks, with one or two older thieves among them whom they idolized and followed.
I hadn’t been there more than a few minutes before one of the thieves managed to rob what little bread I had squirreled away, a shirt, and a pair of socks from my canvas bag. I was furious. I began to make it plain to everyone within hearing distance that I thought this continual thievery was intolerable, that the thieves were a prisoner’s worst enemy. One of their leaders heard me raving and sauntered over. “What did you say?” he said with a smirk. I said, “The worst people to meet up with are these thieves.”
He was in a playful mood, standing there in front of me, tapping his foot on the floor and juggling something back and forth in his hands. “Ah,” he said, “you think these thieves should have their heads cut off, hey?” “No, but I just want them to know who they’re stealing from!” He leered at me. “You somebody special?” His attitude infuriated me all the more. “No, I’m nobody special. I’m a prisoner just like anyone else. That’s the trouble. We’re all prisoners here! We’re all in the same boat! If they want to steal, they can steal from the prison or steal from the Russians. Why do they want to go around stealing from prisoners? We’ve all got enough trouble already without stealing from each other!”
He stopped grinning and stared at me for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and walked away. He went around among the young thieves, talking now to this one, now to that one. I was afraid some real trouble was brewing, but in a few minutes he was back, smiling, with my clothes—the bread had long since been eaten. As he handed them to me, he said with a smirk, “Here, I’d change my mind about thieves if I were you!” I said nothing, just took the clothes and stared at him, unsmiling. Finally, he shrugged again and walked away.
But I was never bothered again as long as I stayed in that barrack.
That evening after supper the guard called out my name, took me to the infirmary, and put me into one of the little cubicles. He stood outside. Dr. Barovski was seated at his desk; in the cubicle with him at another table was a young nurse who looked at me rather suspiciously. The doctor motioned to me not to talk, then told me to strip to the waist. After he examined me a while, he told the nurse to prepare such-and-such a medicine. He told me to sit down while he took my blood pressure.
When the nurse went to the cabinet to prepare the medicine, Dr. Barovski whispered: “I can’t get you on the list to stay here. I tried to pull some strings, but it’s simply impossible. I think they’re getting suspicious of me because I’ve been holding so many people here. I called you tonight to tell you the facts. I’m terribly sorry.” By this time, the girl was back with the medicine. She gave me a few pills to take and a bottle to take along; while she watched, I swallowed the pills and left.
IN THE HOLD OF THE TUG STALIN
EARLY THE NEXT morning, it was announced throughout the barracks that an étappe was being formed for Norilsk. We were told to pack our things and report outside to the prison compound. The whole area was jammed with prisoners. Many of them had been here for months, waiting for a sufficient number of trainloads to arrive in Krasnoyarsk to make the shipment of prisoners up the river “economical.” Our trainload must have filled up the quota, for we left within two days of our arrival.
Once again, the long commission tables were set out in the courtyard. The officials began to call out names for the various groups. At last we set off in a rather straggling, disorderly file toward the Yenisei. At the river bank, I turned to look back. Down the road came a huge army of prisoners, more than 2,000 men shuffling along with their little bundles over their shoulders or slung across their backs. Down on the river, a row of barges had been lined up along the bank with gangways reaching out from shore into the holds. As the army of prisoners reached the river, groups were stretched out along the bank, surrounded by guards, until their turn came to be loaded aboard.
With God in Russia Page 17