With God in Russia

by Walter J. Ciszek

  The next day I reported to work before 8 A.M., wearing my good clothes because I had no others except for the padded suit I had worn in the prison camp. It was possible to take a bus practically to the door of BOF, but that morning I walked to work; it was my first job as a free man, and it was a strange feeling to return to BOF, the plant I had built as a prisoner, in a new position of responsibility at a good salary.

  Ladislas was already waiting to show me around the lab. It consisted of four big rooms, each of them outfitted with two work benches, two electric stoves, sinks, and all the necessary chemistry equipment. Three girls worked in each room, running tests on the ore samples for copper and nickel content. These test samples were then bagged, tagged, and filed for later reference. There were forty girls in the lab all told, twelve or thirteen for each shift, but beside Ladislas and me there were only three men in the whole department.

  One was the head chemist and instructor, whom I barely knew. The other two, Maxim and Basil, were office managers like Ladislas, in charge of the other shifts. I worked with Ladislas on the day shift, which was the heaviest; Maxim, a nervous, high-strung Russian, had the four-to-twelve shift. Basil, a Ukrainian, managed the twelve-to-eight shift, but unlike Maxim, he was so easygoing he never worried about anything.

  My job was simply to keep the girls supplied with the necessary chemicals and materials, then to file the completed test results. Ladislas said these packets had to be kept at least a month in case further tests were required on that batch of ore, or in case the refined ore didn’t show the same percentages of copper and nickel as our tests had indicated.

  Now that I was settled in Norilsk, and things seemed to be going well, I decided to try again to write home to my family—my first letter in more than fifteen years. At Viktor’s suggestion, I went first to the KGB offices in Norilsk and asked if it was all right; I explained that I hadn’t written home since 1940. The KGB agent in charge said it was no affair of theirs; it was a militia (i.e. police) matter. He told me to take it up with the chief of the MVD.

  I waited in the MVD office one day for almost four hours, and finally got to see the chief sometime in the afternoon. He listened sympathetically as I explained my case again. I told him it had been so long since I’d written that I didn’t know whether anyone at home was alive or not. He was most kind and said he had no objections; he even showed me how to address the envelope so it would be certain of delivery, then gave me a special envelope to use for overseas mail.

  I had to address it just the opposite to what I would have considered normal—writing first the name of the country, then the state, the street number and the name, using both languages, Russian and English, in alternate lines. Then, at the very bottom of the envelope, I added my return address in Russian. I wrote to Sister Evangeline, my sister, because I still remembered the address of her convent—if she was still there.

  I wasn’t sure anyone would get the letter, so I kept it short and to the point. Prisoners had told me that long letters never got through; most of them simply wrote “Alive and well” to their families when letters were allowed. In any event, there was little sense in my writing a lot of news until I knew if the letters were reaching America. The militia chief had assured me there wouldn’t be any problem, but I kept the letter short anyway. I signed it very simply, “Your brother, Walter.”

  On my way home that afternoon, I bumped into Petro, a young lad from the Urals who worked in the iron-stripping mines. He invited me in for a drink, since it was payday. During our conversation, I told him I had written home. That was all the occasion he needed. He told his wife, Katcha, to make some pilmeni (little dough-covered meatballs) and he brought out the vodka for a real celebration. “Ah, it’s a big day, Valodga,” he said, “you have to let us celebrate!”

  Since I had missed the noon meal and Petro’s wife insisted on cooking the pilmeni, I couldn’t refuse their offer. While Katcha worked in the kitchen, I sat down with Petro. First of all, we had to toast America. So Petro filled up two water glasses with vodka. We raised the glasses, clinked them together for America and chanted, “za vashie zdorovie!” (To your health!) The only way to drink vodka, at least the vodka that was common in Siberia, is to turn the glass bottoms up and drain it in two gulps—then hold a piece of rye bread tight under your nose, sniffing deep to clear your head of the fumes. We drained the glasses.

  After we toasted America, we toasted my family, the good news, and payday. Then Katcha came in with a delicious meal of pilmeni. She and Petro talked of their plans to work for five years here in the polar regions, collecting the big zapolarie in order to build a nest egg, then return to the Urals to buy a house and farm. “And you know what, Valodga?” said Petro. “Pretty soon you’re going to baptize my first son!” I congratulated them, and we drank to that; then the celebration went on into the evening.

  Petro’s idea of a little celebration pretty well knocked me flat, but that Saturday night I had to face another one. I had promised to marry Ladislas and his fiancée, Raya; they swore they had waited for me to get out of the prison camps just so I could perform the ceremony. At seven o’clock on Saturday evening, I arrived at Ladislas’s apartment for the wedding.

  It was a beautiful place in the new part of the city on Komsomolskaya Street, on the fourth floor of one of the new five-story apartment buildings. There were two large rooms, tastefully furnished, with all the modern appliances. He was lucky to have it, and in fact it wasn’t really his; he was occupying it while one of the directors of BOF was away on another assignment. No one in Norilsk ever wanted to leave his apartment empty or unoccupied; with everything in such short supply in the town, robberies were common. The director, therefore, had asked Ladislas to take over his apartment while he was gone.

  Ladislas and his bride-to-be were delighted, of course. Now that they had a place of their own, they could get married. Since they were Polish, the marriage ceremony was in the Roman rite, and I celebrated a Nupital Mass. Everyone had brought something for the party, and Ladislas and Raya had been visiting the stores and shopping for a month to prepare for the celebration, so it was a long, wonderful evening.

  Meanwhile, at BOF, I was learning more and more. I found the work interesting and the people quite friendly. Most of the girls at BOF knew I was a priest before I had been working there very long. They didn’t necessarily show me any special signs of respect, but they were willing to cover for me if I came in late or had to leave early because of a wedding, baptism, and so on. The supervisor herself, Anastasia, was especially friendly. Before a month was out, she asked if I would take charge of the night shift. I was happy to do it, because it left me free most of the day and evening for apostolic activities.

  Occasionally, though, the girls in the lab would drop into my office to talk religion. One night, Tashya, a tiny and lively Russian with chestnut hair combed straight back, like the majority of Russian women, came in hesitantly. She had heard I was a priest, and she wanted to know if I was Russian. I told her no, I was an American. That stumped her; the only priests she had known were Russians, and she had no idea, for instance, that Mass could be said in the Latin rite as well as in the Oriental rite.

  Whenever Tashya talked to me about this, she would leave the room if anyone else came in, then catch me again when I was alone. This began to pique my curiosity, and I thought she must be leading up to something. Finally, one night she came out with it. “I want you,” she said, “to sing a Panikhida (Requiem) for my husband.” It was my turn to be surprised. “You were married?” I said. “Yes,” she said, “my husband died almost exactly a year ago, and I want you to sing a Panikhida on the anniversary of his death.” Then she told me the whole story.

  Her husband had worked in the factory at BOF, grinding ore. One day his machine had developed some trouble; he tried to save time by repairing it while it was running. He slipped and fell into the jaws of the machine. He was ground up and mashed into the ore and had to be buried that way. It was a gruesome s
tory, and rather sad, for he and Tashya had been married only three months. I agreed to sing the Panikhida, then Tashya asked me to baptize her little boy, too. That evening I walked home with her, sang the Panikhida with her father and mother present, and made arrangements to baptize the boy on Sunday.

  This is a big occasion for a Russian family, so the house was full of guests. In the Oriental rite, baptism is by triple immersion; the whole ceremony takes almost forty minutes, and at the end of the baptismal ceremony, confirmation is given. After the ceremony, many of the guests came up to ask me to baptize their children. That was the way my work grew, and the process was unending.

  Another evening, while I was filing some batches of test results, Ninja came quietly into the office and waited for me to look up. She was a pretty young girl, a member of the Komsomol and married to a Party man. “Can I ask you a few questions?” she said. “Of course,” I said. She hesitated. “Are you a priest?” “Yes,” I said. “No fooling?” she pleaded. I laughed.

  Ninja fell silent for a moment, then she said, “I’ve been reading a Bible that I borrow now and then from an old woman I visit, and there are a lot of things in it I don’t understand. But it says that everybody, in order to be saved, must be baptized. Do you know how to do it?” I smiled. “Of course,” I said. “Could you baptize me?” I was a little startled at that. “Now who’s fooling?” I said. “It’s not quite so easy; we’ll have to see.”

  Just then someone came down the corridor and Ninja ducked out. As a Komsomol, she didn’t want to be caught talking to a priest about religion. She came back later and began immediately by asking, “When can I be baptized?” I had to smile at her anxiety, but I said, “Well, when I find out what you know about God, about baptism, about salvation, and a lot of other things. Also, I have to make sure how sincere you are.” She was so eager, however, that I told her to read several passages in the Bible and made arrangements to meet her regularly so she could begin instructions.

  Working with Ninja, night after night, I could actually sense the grace of God at work—in her sincerity, in her enthusiasm, and in the change which had come over her. Now she not only wanted to be baptized herself, but she wanted her three children baptized as well. Her husband, however, would be against it, she knew; he was a sincere Party man. But she begged me to do it anyway, and promised that she would bring up the children in the faith.

  Finally, when her husband was called away to Moscow for a meeting of the Party, Ninja pleaded with me not to put it off any longer. I couldn’t refuse. Her mother was there, and the old woman who had been the cause of it all by lending Ninja her Bible. In fact, she was the sponsor for the whole family. I never in my life experienced such devotion. I could almost feel the Holy Spirit flowing in the waters as I baptized Ninja; her reaction moved me deeply. Then I baptized the children and gave them all little aluminum crucifixes I’d gotten from Viktor. After that, we had a party.

  A week later, when Ninja’s husband returned, the little boy let the cat out of the bag. He told his father all about the party, and showed him the “present” I’d given him—the little crucifix. The father was no fool; he suspected immediately what had happened and he was furious. He threatened to have the priest who had done it arrested. Eventually, though, the storm blew over; he even allowed Ninja to bring up the children in the faith.

  He wasn’t the only one. I remember another Party man in Norilsk who told his wife, as he boarded a train for a Party meeting in Moscow, that when he returned he had better find his baby baptized or there would be trouble in the house. Another high-ranking official in the city, who used to give thunderous public speeches denouncing religion, considered it a distinct honor to be the godfather of his sister’s child the day I baptized the boy.

  On the occasions of the great October and May holidays, the government used to give out acknowledgments, premiums, and certificates for outstanding work. The first October I was at BOF, I got a bonus certificate for 100 rubles. Every premium period after that, I got something—a 75-ruble bonus, or a certificate, or a premium. More important than the actual cash or the certificates, though, was the fact that, every time I won an award, the notation “Blagodarnost” (Exceptional Worker) was entered in my personal file and working papers. That meant I’d always have excellent references if I tried to get a job somewhere else; it also meant that when the KGB checked up on me, as they still did from time to time, they wouldn’t find anything but good reports in my record. If they weren’t impressed, at least they would find no ammunition to use against me in the interrogations.

  About this time, too, I was received into the Provsoiouz—the Union of Soviet Workers. At the meetings in the plant, which we had almost every Monday morning, they insisted that everyone should belong to the union. They kept pointing out the benefits and privileges which we missed by not joining. After much persuasion, I finally agreed to join.

  The procedure was simple. You wrote out a standard petition, which was read at the local union meeting, and the chairman asked the members if it should be considered. In my case, they agreed to consider my petition; I was then asked to rise, give a short autobiography, and answer any questions which might be raised from the floor (there were none). Then a motion was made and passed—and I became a member of Provsoiouz.

  For small monthly dues, one ruble per 100 rubles of salary, I received the following privileges: sick benefits, including free medical treatment, and 60 percent of my salary while I was laid off; the first choice of sanitoriums and rest homes if I needed extended treatment, and for these items I paid only one-third the normal cost; first consideration given to any application for a new job, or for transfer to a better paying job when it became available.

  On the other hand, the union becomes all-encompassing. Not only are questions of work and working conditions raised at the meetings, but the members’ private lives and their shortcomings are also freely discussed. At one of the union meetings, for instance, a young couple was called up to explain their marital problems. Both of them were Komsomol leaders and, therefore, supposedly outstanding Party members. They seemed an ideal and happy couple, but the husband wanted to divorce his wife because they had no children.

  Since most of the workers at BOF were women, the poor husband didn’t stand a chance. He was shelled from all sides: “Is this any example for a Komsomol leader to be showing the youth?” “She was good enough for you when you married her, but now you’re getting tired of her, is that it?” “What about the new Soviet code for family life, even if there are no children?” The situation was almost laughable, but the fact that the union had such a control over its members wasn’t funny at all.

  NORILSK IS MY PARISH

  ONE MORNING, WHEN I came home from work, I found a telegram from the family who owned my bolok saying they were on the way home. I talked to Viktor and Ladislas, and the latter insisted I move in with him for as long as he had his new apartment. I hated to inconvenience the newlyweds, but I had nowhere else to go, so I agreed to take over one room of their two-room apartment.

  Viktor warned me not to be too active at Ladislas’. Most of the government apartment houses were strictly controlled by the building superintendent, who reported any “suspicious activity” to the police. As a result, I usually went to Viktor’s in the evening to sing the Panikhida, or to the people’s homes to perform baptisms and other ceremonies. I did, however, do some baptizing at Ladislas’ apartment—and promptly got called out by the KGB. They asked me to report, not to KGB headquarters, but to the City Center.

  When I was ushered in, there were four men seated around the table. They asked me to have a seat. The session began with the routine questions: How was I finding life now that I was liberated? How was I getting along with people? Did I like my job? and so forth. Suddenly, they zeroed in. “Who gave you permission to do missionary work?” said one of the men. “You know that requires Moscow’s approval.” I was startled by the suddenness of the question; then I told him frankly that I was
doing what my conscience told me to do and what the people needed.

  “I have a right to say Mass at home or to pray if I want to,” I told them. “The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. And if anybody comes in while I’m saying Mass, I’m not going to chase him out. I’m not agitating, not advertising, but if somebody wants to come, I won’t send him away. And if someone asks me to do him a favor, as long as it isn’t against the law, I’ll do it—like a good Soviet comrade.”

  They reminded me that it was against the law for a priest to take money from the people. All “authorized” priests had their salaries paid by the government. “You just prove one case where I so much as asked for money,” I answered. “You just try! You know you can’t, because if you could prove that I ever took money from people, or asked people for money, you would have had me in here long before this!”

  We went on that way for over an hour, arguing, while they began to drop broad hints that I should stop my “subversive activities.” I told them simply that as long as people came to me freely, I would continue to help them. Legally, there wasn’t much the KGB could say to that, but at the end of our little “chat” they warned me to “watch out.” That night I went to see Viktor and Father Neron to tell them I’d been called out. It wasn’t particularly news to them; they had also been called recently.

  Viktor was in the weakest position of the three of us, because he didn’t work. He spent all his time looking after the needs of his people and in return his “parishioners” took care of his needs. The KGB wanted to know where he was getting his money, since he had no job. Neron and I, on the other hand, did have jobs, I at BOF, and Neron as a night watchman on a construction job. Viktor, for one of the few times since I’d known him, was worried. I told him what I had told the KGB, however, and he thought we could probably get away with it a little while longer.