JOURNEYS Mennonite Stories of Faith and Survival in Stalins Russia, John B. Toews, 1998

hock of arrest, the severity of imprisonment and interrogation, the long sentence in the face of obvious inno¬ cence — the prisoners withdrew into their innermost, intuitively dwelling on their personal misfortune, quite unable to empathize with the collective tragedy surrounding them. Warkentin was as¬ tounded by the silence of the prison car. Widespread depression robbed individuals of the will to live. Sometimes the ongoing despair resulted in suicide, more often in a spirit of resignation which welcomed death in any form. Such people did not survive camp life for long. As Warkentin repeatedly points out, their lives lacked purpose and so they became easy victims, consumed by the ravages of camp life. The red trains had no known destination, at least for the pris¬ oners. Only the changing landscape suggested the direction of travel. When the train finally stopped another often more gruel¬ ling world emerged. Sometimes it meant a transfer to the freight barges of Russia’s massive rivers, whose journey northward was the last one before freeze-up. Their holds, reminiscent of the slave ships of old, were even more confining and claustrophobic than the railway cars. Other shocks awaited the prisoner upon reach¬ ing the camp destination: the existing buildings could not house all the prisoners; the facility was only partially constructed; the barracks were yet to be built; the camp was located a great dis¬ tance from the station and so the inadequately clothed and shoed prisoners were forced to march through snow covered woods in sub-zero temperatures. Some sat around bonfires under the open sky, some lived in tents, others occupied buildings devoid of cook¬ ing and eating facilities as well as bunks. Now, as Warkentin and Berg graphically illustrate, the day to day struggle for long-term survival began. THE TEXTS Autobiographical material of this sort naturally presented cer¬ tain translation difficulties. Stories orally related simply listed events and experiences as they came to mind. The refreshing spon- UNDERSTANDING THE MEMOIRS 17 taneity of some accounts was occasionally offset by their disor¬ ganization and repetitiousness. Elements of authenticity may have been lost as the translation tried to bring greater sequence and order to the narrative. These oral accounts bring a womans per¬ spective to the horrendous dislocations of the 1930s and 1940s. They are detailed, intimate and self-disclosing. Anna and Justina are struggling with the very fabric of life itself. There is no sense of distance or detachment. In contrast, Abrams and Axons writ¬ ten memoirs are characterized by a certain inability to portray the inner essence of a happening. Their life experiences are equally tumultuous and varied, yet somehow they wish to establish se¬ quence and control in their narratives. There is tendency towards detachment, an inability to adequately picture the life-threaten¬ ing pathos surrounding