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

the next morning .... I found it difficult to fulfull my task.... I could only walk as far as the barn and was kept with the ordinary prisoners .... It was impossible to per¬ form my assigned work, but I did what I could .... One day. . .our head mentioned that I might again be able to work in the specialty where I had been so successful.... I was to be sent to another camp . . . several hundred kilometers away to¬ gether with G. Harms .... After our arrival . . . and a second meeting with a camp commandant ... I was welcomed as a co¬ worker in the horse section [of the new camp] .... As long as I had the opportunity to work there I was never curtailed in any way by my boss .... 210 JOURNEYS 13 Sometimes it is difficult to judge the degree to which some¬ thing good is good and something bad is bad. Initially I was happy with my new position in this camp. During the four years of my imprisonment I had never felt as free as here. Our Russian supervisor Petilov was an extraordinarily good man. He trusted me completely and under his supervision I enjoyed complete free¬ dom, at least as far as this was possible for a prisoner. Thanks to a good relationship with my foremen . . . our [horse] depot rarely experienced in shortages .... We built everything we needed ourselves — wagons in summer and sleighs in winter. Some forty men worked day and night to prepare the necessary transport.... We dried the birchwood from the forest in our kiln and used it to make wheels on runners for the sleighs. Our blacksmith shop clad the wood with iron as it was necessary ... or shoed the horses .... We were close to the newly completed Kotlass-Vorkuta railway line and so we rarely lacked hay .... The horse barns here were much worse than in Loktschimlas. The horses stood in dark rooms and in summer there was as much rain in the barn as outside .... We enlarged the corrals and in summer allowed the horses to graze in the forest pastures at night. Sometimes they got lost in the woods or sank into a bog .... Luck¬ ily we had a wise supervisor who did not accuse us of sabotage .... I was very pleased in the spring of 1941 when a number of my colleagues from other camps came to visit me. Camp directors wanted them to observe our horse operation and learn something from it. It is difficult to achieve excellence if a support system is lacking. I cant remember that the [camp] administration ever put me down because I was a prisoner, but even asked me for counsel and advice. I enjoyed my work and time passed quickly .... I often thanked God that I was so privileged .... Then came June 22, 1941. War was declared against Ger¬ many. The news struck like a bolt of lightening on a clear day. For a long time I sat in my room and stared blankly. The future loomed darkly. All radio contact was cut off. . . . Next morning when I made my usual rounds not a single German worker was visible. It was a difficult day for all Germans,