After the
search was over, the inmates were allowed to return
Many Jehovah's Witnesses
receive ten years of hard labor merely for having a few issues
of the magazine Watchtower in their apartments. Since people are
arrested for possession
of these writings, the anxiety and exasperation of the administration
over the presence of
this literature in camp is understandable. No one has discovered how it
gets into the
camp. After all, following conviction, every prisoner is stripped of all
clothing and
completely searched. On arrival at the camp each prisoner is thoroughly
searched
again,
down to the last seam. Suitcases are searched for double bottoms. No
stranger is allowed
into the camp without good cause. When inmates are let out of the camp
zone for work in
the fields, they are surrounded by armed guards and no one is permitted
to approach
them.
A thorough search of each prisoner is made when they return to the camp
in the
evening.
But despite this surveillance, the Brooklyn literature finds its
readers.
In the camp the Jehovah's
Witnesses were the most disadvantaged because they were under
constant surveillance. If more than three of them gathered, they were
ordered to
disperse.
The camp authorities maintained a list of festivals I honored by each
religion. On one
Jehovah's Witnesses holiday armed soldiers were brought in and
positioned nearby to wait
for the services to begin. Their services began with singing hymns
outdoors. Previously
organized, the women gathered rapidly, one gave the pitch, and all began
to sing. Before
the hymn was finished, the camp gates opened and the soldiers and the
camp director
marched in. The director approached the singing women and ordered them
to
disperse. They
ignored her and continued to sing. Then the director raised her voice
and
shouted, "I
order you to disperse!" No results. "Whom am I ordering?" Still no
reaction. 'The Jehovah's Witnesses sang louder. Then the camp director
went up to the head
of the soldiers and spoke with him quietly; she shrugged and returned to
the
women.
"I am warning you for the last time, get moving at once. You are
breaking camp
regulation. You know singing is not allowed in the camp." No response.
The camp
director stood helplessly and listened.
The women disregarded the
director, finished one
hymn, and started another. The
director could hardly contain herself, bit her lip, and darted
infuriated looks. "I
will give orders to shoot," she threatened. No reaction came from the
women, who
looked entranced, even blissful, standing close to each other singing. I
decided that the
soldiers armed with machine guns were present merely to intimidate the
women. If the order
to shoot came, it would be to shoot above their heads. But that did not
happen. When the
women finished singing their three hymns, they left without even
glancing at the
director,
as if nothing had happened.
The Jehovah's Witnesses were
mainly young women with a few older ones serving second
sentences. First sentences ranged from live to seven years, while second
sentences were
ten years. All Jehovah's Witnesses, except for the Group II disabled,
worked at all camp
lobs, mainly in the serving division. After work, during rest periods,
they regularly
recited Bible verses. The more capable ones also studied foreign
languages -
French, English, and German-in order to translate the religious
literature for those who did not
understand. It was because of the Jehovah's Witnesses that the camp was
so frequently
searched. No matter how carefully they hid their scraps of paper with
biblical quotations
and excerpts from their translations, the authorities always found
something.
Often, especially after dark,
guards loitered outside the windows to observe what the
Jehovah's Witnesses were doing in their beds. If they noticed anyone
writing or reading
from a scrap of paper, the guards rushed in to tear the paper from the
girl's
grasp. Often
they found only a letter to a relative.
Several times a year the
authorities carried out what were known as major
raids.
Although they always took place on Sundays, no one could predict them. I
recall one
typical raid when the guards burst through the gates, ran into the
various sections and
barred all the exits. "With bedding to the work zone!" they ordered.
Everyone,
ill or well, picked up her bedding and moved. By the gate the women
guards shook all the
sheets one by one and searched pockets and bodies from head to foot.
When the body
searches were completed, all inmates were herded into the work zone.
Each put down her
bedding sat on it and waited. Conversations were strained. As soon as
all the inmates were
in the work zone, the camp was thoroughly searched, often for several
hours.
After the search was over, the
inmates were allowed to return and tidy up the sleeping
area. Once after such a search, the camp director called me into her
office. I was
surprised, knowing that no clandestine papers were among my things. The
director, Anna
Aleksejevna, spread five issues of Watch-tower before me. They were
written in different
languages, but the director, although a teacher by training, did not
recognize the
languages. I had never seen the magazine and wanted to read, which I
knew would not be
allowed. Therefore, I said, "All right. Let me look closely at the
spelling. You
know, the European languages are so much alike that I could make a
mistake. And I want to
be accurate." While I was speaking I had already read a few sentences in
the German
copy. One verse stuck in my memory: "Be harmless as a dove and wise as a
serpent." I have often thought about this sentence which is not bad
advice for people
who have to survive in the Soviet Union.
When I stopped reading because
the director was becoming
suspicious, I placed the
magazines into three piles and declared, "These two are in English,
those two are in
French, and this one is in German." The director was delighted, since
she could
mention the languages of the confiscated magazines in her report. The
magazines had been
found buried in the flower beds, but how they had come into the camp
zone, no one knew.
One day while working in the
field I could not stand up. I felt such sharp pain in my
spine that I could not move. The guard was notified, he passed the
message on to the
mobile guards, and by the time the work day ended, a horse and a cart
arrived. The
Jehovah's Witnesses gently lifted me into the cart, lifted me out at the
gate and carried
me inside the zone, into my barracks and placed me in my bed. All
through my sickness they
were diligent nurses. I could not have wished for better care,
especially under camp
conditions. Every one of them should have studied medicine and worked
with the seriously
ill in hospitals. The severe shortage of nursing personnel in the Soviet
Union amounts to
an emergency. The wages are so low that it is only possible to recruit
chronic alcoholics
who are not tolerated anywhere else. Consequently, patients in hospitals
receive
practically no nursing care.
Jehovah's Witnesses consider it
their duty to help everyone, regardless of religion or
nationality. As no one ever nursed and pampered me like these young
women, I found it
almost difficult to accept. While nursing me, they sat at my bedside for
hours trying to
convert me. Although I said that I had been christened and had my own
faith, they
explained that it was their duty to she theirs. In contrast to the rest
of the inmates, I
was more patient, and was interested in hearing their proselytization.
Considering their
educational level, they knew their subject well and knew many Bible
verses by heart.
One woman who had been a member
for four years was struggling. She explained, "I
lost my house in a fire, and my two children died. I had a difficult
time. Then the
sisters consoled me and preached their faith. I accepted and two years
later I was
arrested. Now God is testing my faith."
I asked, "And you don't regret
having accepted the faith for which you now must
sit in prison?"
"What can he done? Everything
happens according to God's will. If we must suffer
here, that is because of our sins," she sighed.
I continued, "I do not think
the Soviet labor camps are for penance; they are
punitive camps where the Party puts people for thinking differently from
the government.
All of you are in prison not because you believe, but because you preach
and try to
convert. If you sat at home alone and prayed quietly to God, no one
would ever find out or
take you to court."
"That is true, But it is our
duty to preach and gain new brothers and sisters. We
should not be so egotistical to prepare only ourselves for the
millennium on earth. All
people should be informed so they can live in it. If someone refuses,
that is their own
business."
Several of the Jehovah's
Witnesses told me about events that occurred in connection
with their faith. I wondered where they found the strength and energy to
carry out such
risky and complicated activities. For example, a clandestine printing
press was discovered
in Irkutsk where translated literature was printed in Russian, in order
to reach greater
masses of people.
One of the women volunteered,
"I don't tell anyone that I speak German. I know you
do and we could talk to each other in German."
"Fine. In fact I prefer German
to Russian."
"Did you know I was in
Germany," she asked.
I was not particularly
surprised, as several people had been to Germany. To continue
the conversation I asked, "Long ago?"
"It was about ten years ago,
when I went to the Netherlands to attend the
international conference of the Jehovah's Witnesses."
"Really? But where did you get
the necessary documents for the trip?"
"You think I traveled with
documents? Without documents! I crossed the border on
foot and traveled to Holland. I returned on foot. Besides, I had a large
pile of
literature to carry back." I looked at her in disbelief. "What do you
say to
that?" she asked after seeing my astonishment.
"And you went alone?"
"I went alone, but God was with
me everywhere."
"But that's incredible!"
"It sounds unbelievable, but it
happened, not once, but twice!"
"Both times without documents?"
"Yes. Both times on foot across
the border and back."
"If that's true, then God must
have guided you across the border."
"Yes, my dear, such is God's
power. To make the visible invisible, to make the
audible inaudible, and much more."
"But power in your faith is
enormous. Without faith, you would never have dared to
take such a risk."
"Without a doubt, that too,"
she agreed.
I remember, too, another
conversation I had with the Jehovah's Witnesses about the
gods. They insisted that there were two gods, Jehovah and another, whom
Jehovah would
fight. No matter how hard they tried, using modern science, chemistry,
and the newest
findings in physics, they could not prove the existence of the other god
to me. Despite
our disagreement, I found these women, with a few exceptions, good,
charitable, virtuous,
and extraordinarily strong in their faith.
Then the Jehovah's Witnesses
were suddenly and unexpectedly assailed by the tempter,
the devil. The Cheka discovered a new method, never before tried,
whereby they hoped to
eradicate the Jehovah's Witnesses: by discovering their leaders. The
task was difficult,
but not Impossible. One by one these leaders were taken to Saransk, the
capital of
Mordovia. Like any larger city, Saransk had stores, theaters, and other
attractions. Two
Chekists would take a woman, half-staved for years in hard labor camps,
to a grocery or
restaurant and tell her, "Choose whatever you like. We will buy it for
you."
When the woman proudly refused, saying that she did not need anything
she was taken to a
department store and again offered anything. "Then they would say,
"Since you do
not want anything at least have some ice cream," which would be brought
to her. The
woman would reply, "Thank you. I don't eat ice cream," and would not
accept it.
"Perhaps you would like to see a movie or a play?" the Chekist would
offer,
showing his ignorance, because Jehovah's Witnesses never attended the
movies that were
occasionally brought to the camp and shown to the inmates in the dining
room. The woman
was kept for a few weeks in the Saransk Cheka where they tried to
convince her to leave
the group, with the promise of immediate release from prison. When the
Chekists accepted
their failure, the victim was returned to camp. After a while another
one was taken away.
Upon returning to camp,
everyone told the same story. It was horrible to tempt people
who had already suffered such a long time. To show people, who haven't
eaten well for
years, shelves of fresh bread, cakes, cookies and other goodies, is
actually torture. Only
one woman, a young Moldavian, did succumb. No one ever found out exactly
how it happened
as she never told anyone. Like the others, she was suddenly taken away
with her
belongings. Before she left, the other women told her what to expect and
gave her sound
advice. Even so, the young Moldavian was unexpectedly released, despite a
remaining five
year sentence. Perhaps she wanted to live and could not endure. Possibly
she was taken
home from which it was impossible to leave. Nevertheless, if she was
free to go home, she
had also been forced to renounce her faith and to promise in writing and
on tape never to
return to her religion.
After about half a year this
same woman reappeared in the camp, recuperated, well fed,
and accompanied by two Chekists. She came not as an inmate, but as a
lecturer. She wore a
cherry-colored woolen suit, in bad taste but expensive, black patent
leather shoes and a
matching handbag. The Jehovah's Witnesses were visibly upset. Work in
the sewing division
stopped and everyone was called to the living section. There, sitting at
the head of the
table, the former sister delivered a lecture.
She explained that when she
accepted the faith she was not aware of what she was doing.
She regretted having convinced women in the Moldavian villages of the
existence of
Jehovah. She regretted having been responsible for ruining so many
families. Convinced of
her error, she now felt it her duty to lead her former sisters back to
real life. She
lectured for several hours. She cried. Yet her former sisters viewed her
with scorn.
This experience was both
upsetting and depressing. That afternoon no one in the camp
laughed. Everyone was involved in her own thoughts. No matter how they
tried to conceal
their feelings, the Jehovah's Witnesses were terribly concerned. I
wondered why this
display was necessary. Was anything gained by it? It was an empty
performance for which
the administration could draw a check mark on their calendar to indicate
that their
regular hounding of the religious inmates had been performed. Perhaps
the Chekists thought
it ingenious; perhaps they imagined that the women would line up to
denounce their faith.
However, the Chekists achieved the opposite effect.
At that time one Jehovah's
Witness began to study the laws from the Criminal code and
wrote to the All-Soviet Prosecutor's office. After months of study she
had discovered that
all of them were tried incorrectly for "agitation against the state."
Thus their
highest penalty could not exceed three years. As soon as the women heard
this, they wrote
to the courts that they received seven and ten instead of the three
years. One's
unnecessary years in prison became the only topic of discussion. One
woman spent six extra
years. In three or four months every sister who wrote to the court was
informed that her
penalty, reclassified according to a different section of the law, was
now reduced to
three years. All of them had already spent four or more years in prison.
No one offered
compensation for the surplus years, no one apologized or asked
forgiveness.
It is difficult to imagine
another country where the courts could make such an enormous
mistake. Because of the misapplication of the clause, hundreds of people
were Imprisoned
for seven and ten years (with another ten years for second offenders),
instead of for
three years. Women were serving their second decade for nothing but
their faith! Within a
year, camp # 17-A had no more Jehovah's Witnesses inmates.
Since they could no longer he
classified as "particularly dangerous state
criminals," but as ordinary social criminals, Jehovah's Witnesses were
placed in
camps for criminals. Physically, life was easier for them. Living
conditions and food were
better. However morally their lives were more difficult because they
quickly became
objects of ridicule and entertainment for some inmates. At the same
time, they continued
to proselytize and discovered other inmates ready to accept their faith.
There is one
tragic footnote to this story: All the Jehovah's Witnesses were
released, except one.
Because she almost completed her second ten-year term, there was no
reason to write. She
did not finish serving her time, though, because she died exactly ten
days before her
release. Agitated, she counted the days until freedom when she would
again be among her
relatives. The excitement was too much for her heart. In contrast to the
women who walked
out through the gate, this one was carried out in a coffin made of crude
boards. No one
knows where she was buried. No matter how hard relatives try, bodies are
not released to
them».
No comments:
Post a Comment