December
5, 1999
Conquest,
Robert. KOLYMA: THE ARCTIC DEATH CAMPS. NY, The Viking Press.
1978.
This review was written by Edna Boardman.
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Kolyma (accent on the last syllable), an
area supplied by ships
that
plied the Sea of Okhotsk in far northeastern Russia, was the almost
escape-proof
site of prison camps that accounted for the deaths of
between
3,000,000 and 6,000,000 persons during the Stalin era. Its soils
contained
ores rich in gold, lead, and even uranium. The Soviet state’s
need
for these metals in the 1930s and 1940s, plus an endless supply of
political
deportees and petty criminals to dispose of, seemed a perfect
match
between needs and the means of fulfilling those needs. Conquest
delved
into professionally collected eyewitness accounts, written
reports,
and newly available state figures, but could not narrow the
very
great spread between the greater and lesser death estimates. Almost
all
persons sent there were innocent of crimes, but the supply of
prisoners
was fed by the paranoia of Stalin and his cohorts. It has
become
clear that the purpose of the Kolyma camps was to kill people;
the
production of mineral products was a secondary purpose.
How did so many die? Although the winter
temperatures were the
coldest
recorded anywhere on earth, the far north had proved a healthful
climate
when mined in earlier years by well-supplied and housed persons.
Megadeath
was not inevitable. Prisoners under Stalin died in the process
of
going to the holding areas near the camps in the jammed cattle cars,
a
trip that sometimes took more than a month. They died while enduring
the
life within the camps and experienced summary executions, sometimes
of
whole groups for minor offenses. Food, raised in part at special farm
camps
worked almost entirely by women, was short and doled out in
proportion
to work done. (The more a person needed good food, the less
was
given.) Medical care and sanitation were poor, and the system did
not
discourage criminal activity of the most vicious kind by the
criminals
against the political prisoners. The work in the mines was so
onerous
that few survived for more than a month. The cold itself killed
thousands,
especially when work was required in the darkest and coldest
part
of winter, which had not been the case earlier. Then Stalin
decided,
in the late 1930s, that warm fur coats and felt boots were
luxuries,
a mark of “coddling,” and warm clothing was replaced by canvas
boots
and wadding coats, if any.
What could get a person to join the
unlucky millions? One could:
grumble
about the shortages under communism and waiting in line, be a
kulak
or child of a kulak, be a religious leader or child of one, have
fought
on a side other than the one which won during the revolutionary
times,
refuse to join a collective, praise a Russian book published in a
foreign
country, be unmasked as a “wrecker” if a production unit did not
meet
its quotas as designated in the Five-year Plan, be a Russian
soldier
POW who had been exposed to foreign ideas in Germany, be a
communist
official in the early years of the Bolshevik revolution, be
accused
of stealing state property because one was caught cutting a few
grains
of wheat to feed one’s own hungry children,... Reasons had to do
with
both what one did and with one’s origins.
Why should German-Russians be interested in reading this book?
Conquest
frequently mentions that Germans, including Volga Germans, of
whose
history in Russia he is aware, were among those deported to
Kolyma.
One German-Russian doctor, a man named Koch, saved thousands,
but
was shot for trying to keep individuals alive. Conquest notes that,
at
one camp, all Germans were separated from the other prisoners and put
into
a separate barracks so others would not have to have contact with
Russia’s
enemies. Still, Russian prisoners tried to get into the German
unit
because it was the cleanest and most orderly.
Conquest does not slash wildly about. He
is a careful scholar who
sought
the facts about the exact nature of the housing at Kolyma, the
work
people did, their efforts to cope (and, very occasionally, to
escape),
and the ways they died. He attempts to learn the names of the
ships
used in the Kolyma area, where they were made, their capacity, and
how
many trips they probably made each year.The image of thousands of
ordinary
people cast into a dehumanizing environment becomes numbing to
the
reader after awhile, but Conquest does his best to have his facts
accurate.
He names his sources and weighs his conclusions carefully. He
helps us learn the parameters of this period in the life of our
people.
Note:
Edna is the author of All Things Decently and inOrder: And Other Writing on a
Germans from Russia Heritage, available
for $11.95 from all of the German-Russian organizations.