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

ministrative center for the en¬ tire camp. It was a large village with four streets. The houses, as everywhere in the region, were made of clay. In the center of the village stood a two-storey brick building. It housed the adminis¬ trative headquarters of the camp. We entered a room with sixty or seventy people. It was the camp administrative center, subject to continuous commotion. Instinctively one searched for familiar faces. The signal for silence sounded and we tried to bed down for the night on the hard floor. The group next to me insisted on talking all night and I couldn't help hearing their discussion. They were veterinarians and animal husbandry specialists all sentenced to additional terms as wreckers and saboteurs because of an outbreak of brucellosis. 116 JOURNEYS They accused each other of not speaking decisively during the trial. I could not sleep when I heard this. What had I got into? Even here people lived in constant fear of their lives. New trials and new sentences — one could stay here forever or be executed or sent to the terrible camps in the north. It was a frightening night for me. I had always thought that I would work hard. After all I loved my work and four years were not that long compared with ten. Time would pass quickly. Perhaps there was even a reduced sentence for good work. But now this! In the morning I was called before the commandant. Accom¬ panied by a guard I was led into the administration building. We went to the cattle breeding division where a supervisor, also a pris¬ oner, studied my dossier. “We desperately need a specialist in ani¬ mal husbandry,” he informed me. After consulting with his supe¬ riors he announced, “You will be sent to Samarka as the head of animal husbandry. Your documents will soon be ready.” I was shocked and told him of my night experience. He smiled and said, “That’s why were sending you there. The other specialists have all been arrested and no one is left to do the work.” I pled to be given less responsibility but he remained unyielding. Finally he lost his patience and told the guard to take me to the central bureau for animal husbandry. The supervisor of the office, Stulga, listened attentively to me, then began to curse. “You young men don’t seem to understand where you are. You are a prisoner and a criminal. You can work as a specialist or you’ll end up in the mines in Karaganda. People die there like flies. Dreadful work conditions, poor ventilation, impossible work norms, four hun¬ dred grams of bread once a day and a watery soup. The end result is emaciation and death.” I returned to the head of my division, not knowing what to do. I knocked and opened the door. I could not believe my eyes. Next to the divisional head sat professor Fortunatov the well-known zoologist I once met in Askaniya-Nova. I mentioned earlier that our Sovkoz “Rosovka” was closely connected with that research institute. At that time he was the