He went on like that for a long while. We simply stood there numb, heads hanging, licking our wounds. “What’s the matter with you people?” he roared at last. “Do you want to go back to camp, or would you rather go somewhere else?” At that, there was a sort of concerted but incoherent mumbling from the crowd which seemed to satisfy him, so we were marched off to camp, limping, bruised, and some of the men quite bloody.
The camp itself was still in the hands of the prisoners despite the fact the factory area had now been cleared. We were immediately surrounded by those in camp and a thousand questions were tossed at us. But we were in no mood to talk; we simply went to the barracks and collapsed. Even there, our friends crowded around us, chattering about the incident and how things were going in the camp. It was a long time before I was able to get to sleep. Even after the others had left, I relived the experience of the afternoon over and over again before I could fall asleep, realizing how it might have turned out, and thanking God again and again for the actual outcome.
The next morning, there was a general meeting held in the camp. Mikhail himself didn’t appear, but his adjutant read us a statement by the committee: (1) Anyone caught trying to escape would be shown no mercy by the camp police; (2) the Revolutionary Committee will agree to no more talks between the city officials and the camp; we will talk only to representatives from Moscow itself; (3) we have all been branded as revolutionaries now, and we have one choice—freedom or death; therefore, we must all stick together.
Another of Mikhail’s lieutenants then went on to talk about the interregnum in the Kremlin, the rumors that Beria had been accused of intrigues and arrested, and that the MGB were now being blamed for most of the suffering in the prison camps.
The general who had broken the strike in the factories was still on the scene, along with the special troops which we learned had come all the way from Krasnoyarsk. But for a while, no further moves were made. It must have been obvious to the Party officials that there would be a great deal of bloodshed if the troops assaulted the camp the way they had assaulted the brick factory, and no one wanted to take the responsibility for such a slaughter.
On about April 27th or 28th, the general made his next move. During the afternoon, while the prisoners were sitting around the barracks after dinner, smoking and chatting, the troops made a quick sortie through the main gates. It was well planned and went off with precision. They poured through the gate and quickly surrounded the three barracks at the north end of camp, nearest the main gate. Then they mounted a skirmish line of machine-gunners across the camp roads to keep the rest of us at bay. Soldiers with bayonets drove the surprised men out of those three surrounded barracks, marched them out of the camp, and herded them off toward the city.
As soon as the camp was aware of what was happening, the alarm sounded and our “army” came running pell-mell toward the machine-gunners. The troops must have been told not to shoot unless necessary, for they retreated toward the main gate. At the same time, a fire engine charged through the gate, water nozzles turned on full blast. The streams of water tumbled the leading men in the prisoners’ charge and stopped the onrush just long enough to allow the troops to clear out. The prisoners regrouped to rush the fire truck. As they overturned the truck, the firemen jumped clear and ran to safety. The prisoners rushed after them in a mad charge toward the main gate, but Mikhail stopped them. If they crossed into the death zone, the troops could legally fire upon them as “escaping prisoners.”
The general’s strategy was now clear. He would try to strike unexpectedly and take small groups, perhaps a hundred or so at a time; in this way he might eventually clear or subdue the camp without serious incident. As a countermove, some of the prisoners tried from time to time to sneak out at night, overpower a guard, and steal some guns. But the army had spotlights everywhere; it was impossible to sneak across the death zone in the glare of the lights without being seen.
It was a week before the general tried another move. This time, he got all the city officials and camp officials together, perhaps forty all told, at the main gate. They walked into the camp after supper, stopped a few feet inside the gate, and asked to talk to Mikhail. Meanwhile, the general had massed his troops behind some boxcars on the railroad siding west of camp, unseen in the darkness behind the spotlights.
Mikhail and his assistants walked up the main road to tell the general and the officials that from now on they would speak only to a commission from Moscow. The prisoners crowded around; the officials looked uneasy. At the same time, the troops rushed in from the west, cut the barbed wire and attempted to form a skirmish line across the southwest third of the camp, as they had done the week before at the north end.
One of the prisoners, however, suspected something. He climbed up on a barrel and shouted to the crowd surrounding Mikhail and the officials: “Bratsi! This is a trick, a trap! Look, you can see it in their faces! Look around, something’s fishy!” No sooner had he said it, than we heard the shouts from the southwest. Immediately, most of the crowd rushed over there. The troops were just breaking through the second ring of barbed wire, and the prisoners attacked them with clubs and stones. They withdrew without firing a shot. Presumably, they had been told not to shoot.
At the gate, the rest of the crowd was furious. They began to attack the official party, and the general himself got a smash in the face. The officials broke and ran, with the crowd at their heels pummeling and kicking them. An army major ran into the barracks instead of toward the gate. He climbed to a first-floor window, tried to jump the barbed wire, missed, and hung himself by the throat on the wire.
As their next move, the officials set up a ring of loudspeakers around the camp. From then on, we were subjected to a continuous barrage of propaganda. The loudspeakers blared continually, announcing such things as a special new camp for those who broke away from the revolutionaries. It was situated somewhere east of the city, about 8 or 10 miles out in the tundra. The loudspeakers said over and over that it was better to be in prison, somewhere in a good camp, than to be butchered in Camp 5 if the troops had to move in. They also called out the names of the ringleaders to prove they were known, and promised that those who weren’t ringleaders wouldn’t be punished if they came out now.
Then one day the loudspeakers announced that the commission from Moscow, which the prisoners demanded, had arrived. That same afternoon the commission, three men who had been sent to end the revolts around Norilsk, marched up to the gate. They were met by Mikhail and his staff, but only the three commission members were let in through the gate. Tables were set up opposite the dining room, and the prisoners gathered around. Groups of ten, however, were stationed all around the camp to prevent another sneak attack. The commissioners began by saying that the revolt was useless. If necessary, it could be suppressed by force; in any event, it wasn’t possible to make too many changes in the camps. At that, Mikhail and the other prisoner leaders almost walked out of the conference.
Then one of the commissioners stood up and smiled. He assured us that since Stalin’s death the whole question of prison camps was under review, especially as regarded political prisoners. He said Moscow was greatly concerned about the strikes in the camps around Norilsk, and that he and his colleagues had been sent to make a settlement and avoid bloodshed. He was sure something could be arranged; the commission would be happy to hear any suggestions from the prisoners.
One of the prisoner leaders answered that we were ready for bloodshed if necessary, just as had happened at the camps in Karaganda and Vorkuta. Basically, he said, we wanted human treatment and certain human rights, and he went on to enumerate the prisoners’ minimum demands. There was to be no more forced labor for ten hours without even a noonday meal; there should be no more calling of prisoners by numbers, like cattle.
“We have names!” he said. “We want pay and recompense for our work and we want time off for good behavior. We want to be able to communicate with the outside world and our families—and not
just a note once a year. We want to be able to receive packages from them. We want assurances that defenseless prisoners won’t be shot in cold blood, as two of our men were here. We want assurances that agreements won’t be broken, as were the ones after the last strike, and we want a guarantee of no reprisals. We want better living conditions, fewer men to a barrack, better food.”
The commissioners dutifully wrote down all the demands. Ultimately, they assured Mikhail’s committee that all demands would be met—if we would give up peaceably and return to work. At that, there was a general shout by the prisoners standing around the compound: “Not until we get what we demand!” On that note, the conference ended. For two or three days, the commissioners met in private with the leaders of the revolt, but no conclusion or agreement was reached. On the other hand, the commissioners ordered three truckloads of food brought to the camp to replenish the almost empty warehouses at Camp 5. At least they weren’t thinking of starving us out.
During this period, I heard a great many confessions. The prisoners, not knowing when the shooting might begin, were like men before battle, afraid of death and putting the affairs of their soul in order. I was saying Mass every morning now for large crowds, and distributing many communions.
The end of May came. The revolution in Camp 5 had now run well over a month. For a week the loudspeakers had been calling insistently for surrender before force was necessary. With nothing to do in the camp all day, tension grew and uncertainty mounted. Some men actually broke down under the strain. The infirmary and the hospital were filled, so men lay on the grass outside. The air was warm, the weather beautiful; it was a spring such as we had seldom seen in Norilsk. And yet the atmosphere grew increasingly charged. There were constant alarms every night now. The gates were always open, and the troops had broken passages in the barbed wire on the east and west sides of the camp as well. Every so often, especially at night, they tried to sneak through the openings and cordon off sections of the camp.
Under the continual tension and lack of sleep, men grew exhausted. There was a good deal of muttering that the cause was hopeless. Nobody talked much for fear his voice would crack and betray him. Sometimes, when a man would try to joke about the situation, his laughter would suddenly become nervous, high-pitched, almost hysterical.
On the last day of May, it was obvious that the crisis was approaching. The general was at the main gates that day in full uniform, with his staff running around in all directions, saluting smartly and dispatching orders. Trucks were on the go all day long, circling behind the ranks of the besieging troops, carrying men from one place to another. Our signal towers were working overtime, telling the other camps what was happening, trying to find out, from the women’s camp especially—since they had a good view behind the troops’ lines—about the new troop displacements and where the concentrations were thickest.
From time to time, the troops made rapid forays to cut large sections of barbed wire, then retreated under a barrage of stones and bricks hurled by the prisoners. Still they didn’t shoot. It seemed the general was deliberately trying to spread us out by opening up new possible points of attack, and so thin out our defenses.
Nobody ate any supper that night. In the evening, the women signaled that a big body of troops was massing behind our camp where we couldn’t see them. That night nobody even tried to sleep. Mikhail made a last tour of inspection, shaking his head as he realized that the hour had come. His “police” were everywhere, ordering men into position, exhorting them, stirring up the laggards with a blow on the back from the clubs they carried.
The tension was almost unbearable. Looking at gun barrels is not the most consoling sight in the world, especially when you have no weapons of your own except bricks and clubs. The men knew it was hopeless and the camp police had a hard time keeping them at their posts. For the prison leaders, of course, the situation was desperate. Their necks were going to be in the noose one way or another; either they died in the battle or they would be executed, for the authorities had their names and their pictures on film.
Mikhail’s committee, therefore, made it perfectly plain that anyone who deserted his post when the fighting started would be killed by the camp police before he was able to surrender. It was a case of the devil before and the devil behind, and many of the men began to feel they had only a slim chance of getting out alive if a fight really started.
Night fell, and everyone fell silent, sitting in the glare of the searchlights and waiting. Suddenly, at 1:30 in the morning, the alarm was given. The sound of the first pounding on the rail that rang out over the silent camp was like a shrill scream of doom; it sent a shiver down my back. The troops outside the barbed wire began to move, and with that move the long tension of waiting was broken. The prisoners snapped together.
Everyone grabbed bricks, stones, clubs, or whatever weapon he could find, and ran into position along the barbed wire. The soldiers moved ahead slowly, deliberately, in perfect order; many of them seemed as scared as we were. My group, originally assigned to the main gate, was hurriedly sent off to the east, near the infirmary, where there seemed to be the most troops. The soldiers, seeing us rush toward the fence, halted. So did we. There was a period of awkward waiting and confrontation.
Though it was now two o’clock in the morning, the whole city seemed to be up. There were people on the roofs, and every window overlooking the camp was jammed with faces. By June, the days up here inside the Arctic Circle are extremely long; the sun never really sets at all. Most of the night is almost like daylight, and that night the brightness of the scene was heightened by the glare of army searchlights.
The main attack actually came through the north gate. The machine-gunners from Krasnoyarsk, the general’s crack troops, were in the vanguard. They were into the camp with a rush before anyone really noticed them, and immediately word was flashed to our group to swing back to the center of camp and stop them.
As we rounded the barracks near the bakery and headed along the main street of the camp, we could see that the machine-gunners had planted a line of flags across the roadway and were drawn up behind it. Their commander shouted that the line represented a neutral zone; anyone who stepped over it would be shot immediately. Yet our group was racing toward them, and we were only 20 yards away now.
Running out in front of our crowd was a Lithuanian named Yurgis, an ex-boxer, with a head that sat so solidly on his shoulders he seemed to have no neck, and big hands like hams. I had once thought he was slightly punch-drunk, too, until his friends told me his mental condition was the result of the interrogations he had undergone.
Yurgis was furious when he heard the command to halt. People tried to hold him back, but he shook them off and threw a brick into the crowd of gunners. He caught one of the soldiers on the arm just below the shoulder and knocked him to the ground. Even in the bedlam, and at that distance, I swear I could hear the bone snap. At that, the commander fired his pistol at Yurgis and told his men to open fire. They cut loose right from the hip, and the front row of prisoners went down like wheat before a scythe.
Everybody on the main road with us immediately hit the dirt; I dove to the ground. Yurgis fell dead. The man next to me dove for the ground, but his foot kicked up and a bullet smashed into his heel. Several of the men tried to duck behind the wooden fence of the latrine; the prison “police” thought they were trying to desert and stabbed them in the back.
The machine-gunners continued firing waist high to pin everyone to the ground. Anyone who tried to get up got hit. I began to crawl on my stomach around toward the cover of the kitchen building. I crouched momentarily behind a swill barrel as the bullets slammed into it right at the level of my chest. I made one last desperate dive behind the building, reached the safety of the kitchen, and hugged the wall.
I looked back over my shoulder to see rows of corpses and the wounded scattered in the roadway. I could hear the chatter of the machine guns, the curses and moans of the prisoners, shouted commands, and
still, rising above it all, the high-pitched screams of the women from the direction of their camp. While I watched, troops began to pour in from other openings in the barbed wire, not shooting, but clubbing the prisoners to the ground with rifle butts.
Many of the prisoners were in the barracks and the soldiers began to flush them out, one at a time if necessary. Some of the leaders of the revolt were found dead in the latrine, with their wrists slashed or their throats cut. They preferred to kill themselves rather than be taken alive. The troops entered the kitchen building, where I was, and began to round up the prisoners hidden there. They lined us up against the wall with their rifle barrels practically in our backs, then led us out through the barbed wire.
As we left, I saw the skull-and-crossbones flag thrown down from the roof. The wounded were being taken to the medical center; the dead were just stacked up in rows. I had no way of knowing, of course, what the actual casualties were in Camp 5; by actual count, however, I walked past thirteen corpses on my way out of camp and I’d seen soldiers stacking others like cordwood in front of the infirmary.
We were herded into groups about 150 yards outside the camp. Mikhail was captured, taken out the front gate under heavy guard, and immediately put into a closed prison van and driven off. The women were going wild. They tore down the barbed wire around their camp to attack the soldiers, but were finally driven back by fire hoses at full pressure. Little by little, groups of prisoners were formed up and marched off.
As my group swung off, I took a last look at the whole mad scene—the city alive with spectators, the camp a wreck, the soldiers hurrying everywhere in the spotlights’ glare, the shouts, the commands, the screams, the moans.
MY TERM RUNS OUT
FROM CAMP 5, we were led off straight into the tundra. The soldiers seemed so nervous and tense, I thought sure we were to be shot. I began to pray. We walked about 4 miles to the west. It was almost 5 A.M. when we came to a grassy area, marshy and wet and dotted with thick shrubbery. We were told to sit down, and we sat a long time. It was so swampy, the ground sank under us, but we weren’t allowed to stand up or move. Not until 4 P.M., almost twelve hours later, did we move again. By that time, the water was over my hips as I sat in the marshy ground. I was so hungry I tried to eat handfuls of grass when the guards weren’t looking.
With God in Russia Page 27