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

ed in place .... What pressures I faced in that winter and spring of 1937-38! It was difficult adjusting to the new circumstances. There was the pain of separation from my wife and children, the consciousness MEMOIRS OF ARON WARKENTIN 195 of innocent suffering during the best years of my life, the endless dangers confronting one’s daily existence. One wrong step and your fate was decided. There was no choice but to continue the struggle .... Suddenly we had a problem. Our hay which had been brought in throughout the winter and lay in large piles began to steam each morning like a live volcano .... The heavy snow pressed down the hay and now that it began to thaw, water seeped in. Drying winds could not permeate the tall forest and late snows and spring rains only compounded the problem. The administra¬ tion was threatening to turn us over to the courts as economic saboteurs and wreckers. There were always those who sought to benefit from the misfortune of others, even if it meant the death of their fellow human beings. 196 JOURNEYS 10 Disaster rarely strikes in only one form. That certainly ap¬ plied to our situation. We thought we had acquired a lot of hay during the course of the winter, more than we needed, and so we sold some to the surrounding collective farms. Now we discov¬ ered that we did not possess half of the hay recorded in our books. I spoke of my fears to one of my supervisors who immediately informed his superiors. I felt the noose tightening around my neck. We mistakenly assessed the amount of hay being delivered to us .... I was a candidate for court martial.. .but the good Lord intervened. Help came in the form ofTalin, a Russian who helped us build our quarters in the horse barn. Initially he was assigned to forest work and often begged me to employ him [in the horse barns]. Eventually I succeeded in getting him transferred. Not long after he left to help organize a nearby camp, a task in which he was skilled. I confessed my predicament to him. He proposed an arrangement which enabled me to balance my books. When the control commission arrived a few days later to tighten the noose everything was resolved and the books were balanced .... It was our first spring in the north. We had to get used to the long summer days when the sun arose at three in the morning and set at midnight. Life for the workers had substantially improved. The government was deploying a new method: the workers were paid every week and earned between one hundred and fifty and two hundred rubles. The prisoners were allowed to send money home or purchase food from newly opened stores .... Our wages remained low. I never got more than thirty rubles per month .... One morning in late July a visitor appeared with the order that I should pack my things as quickly as possible and come to a camp seven or eight kilometers away. It was a large site with many forestry workers and two large horse bar