The Many Days and Many Lives of the Gulag

My roommate’s dad was in and out of the Gulag three or four times starting in the late 30s. You want some stories?

Who cares about the stories of some prisoner? It’s a conversations with scholars only!

=====ARE YOU SERIOUS, not another book about the Gulags. I beleive only in books written by those who had to live and work there for some time.—-HOW ABOUT A BOOK ON HOW THE BLACK SLAVES WERE TREATED IN THE COTTON FIELDS AND BAYOUS OF SOUTHERN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or HOW THEY WERE TREATED LATER BY THE KLU KLUX KLAN, how interesting it would be, or a book on HOW RUMSFELD STANDARDIZED TORTURE (AbouGrahib Guantanamo and other)and/or HOW BUSH and his TexanMafia LEGALIZED IT LATER

“My roommate’s dad was in and out of the Gulag three or four times starting in the late 30s. You want some stories?”

Yes I would. Did he ever live in a sharashka, or build his own camp in the permafrost? Was he a trusty, a thief, or a political? Did they release him from camp to fight during the Great Patriotic War, or did he suffer camp, then exile, and then “rehabilitation” when the Boss kicked the bucket?

He was originally arrested for some crime (something we would recognize as a crime, I mean). Robbery, I think. After that point he was “on the list” and kept getting sent back for various reasons.

I think a factor here is that his father was French and he had “French” written under “nationality” in his passport, and that his first name was Ludwig ( my roommate’s patronym is the unusual “Ludwigovna”), and having any association with Germany at all at that time made one suspicious.

My roomie is in Avignon right now. I can ask her more when she gets back next month.

My grandfather spent 10 years there – 19393-49. All his friends were killed at war.

“He was originally arrested for some crime (something we would recognize as a crime, I mean). Robbery, I think. After that point he was “on the list” and kept getting sent back for various reasons.

I think a factor here is that his father was French and he had “French” written under “nationality” in his passport, and that his first name was Ludwig ( my roommate’s patronym is the unusual “Ludwigovna”), and having any association with Germany at all at that time made one suspicious.”
- Christus Maximus

That old sorry story; the minute they get their claws into you, you’re up for a ten year stretch and then maybe another ten year stretch a few years later (and maybe another after that for good measure) if you do someting they don’t like or have the handicap of somehow being a “foreigner” (because the idiot bluecaps think everybody from elsewhere is some sort of spy/wrecker/degenerate.) What a waste.

Sean, thanks for the kind comments about the site. We appreciate the feedback. There will indeed be more Episodes in Gulag History to come in the fall, and they will not only be conversations with scholars. We have one scheduled already with a Gulag survivor, one with two people from the National Park Service who worked on the traveling exhibit about the Gulag and many more to follow.

Steve, I have a question.
Let’s look at the picture
http://gulaghistory.org/archive/fullsize/nastyapic5_3373e7cf6c.jpg

What did you want to say with it? Except regular photos for criminal records – I see nothing. You could find thousand and thousands of such pictures in US archives. People on these types of photo looks same everywhere. What if this man was a murderer? There is no STORY behind.
So what’s the point? To show that Russians could make photos in 1929? O what?

Let’s look at Jacques Ross story.

Prisoners only escaped their cell for marathon interrogations, enforced sleeplessness, and other forms of torture

So would be interesting to hear what Jacques “tested” on himself rather then “stories” about “millions others”….

The pathetic rags, not even worthy of being called “clothes,” no more protected prisoners from the constant cold than the pitiful “food” satisfied their constant hunger. The Gulag, after all, inhabited some of the planet’s coldest places deep in frozen Siberia.

But Jacques survived somehow. For 18 years total! Either he was a batman or his story not very scientific.

PS. I don’t want to say that prisons in Russia was/is the place to relax and be happy. But you are pretending to provide FACTS. There are enough storytellers around, indeed. What is still missing in their stories – dragons that were eating prisoners who не выполняли план.

I am not sure I understand the point, ivanov. Are you saying that if someone survived, then stories of horror and misery were not true?

My grandfather died during the siege of Leningrad. His two sisters survived. Does that mean that stories of how bad it was are not true?

My first wife\’s grandfather spent 17 years in Gulag. He did survive. Does that mean all the cruelty, abuse and utter misery he saw were not there?

Some people survive through incredible hardships. Should we just doubt their accounts because they lived?

Cyrill.
If you publish here their OWN stories – it will be a true one (at least for that person). If it is a story about the story – it can be anything/ From almost truth to bullshit and lie.

Jacques survived. I would be really interested to here how HE was interrogated, beaten etc… Not a “general” stories about “millions”.

PS. My relatives survived блокаду – so I know something not from the scholars.