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

hich was quickly erected, housed over 118 JOURNEYS one hundred persons. Meanwhile specialists and scientists of every kind kept arriving in the camp. There were large areas - the New Lands — which had never been cultivated and which possessed very fertile soils .... The camp administration was directly accountable to Gulag headquarters in Moscow. Neither the Communist Party in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan or the Karaganda district exercised any control. The camp was a colony of Moscow. The administra¬ tive bureaucracy was immense. There were many departments: administration; transport; cultural indoctrination; supply and maintenance; finance; transport; animal husbandry; veterinary; apothecary; labor; mechanical; irrigation; etc. Karaganda was an agricultural exile camp and distinguished itself from others in two important ways. First, the prisoners were granted greater freedom. Secondly, the products of the operation ensured substantially better food provision for the prisoners. The camp was built by inmates: a meat factory; a sugar fac¬ tory; a glass factory; a butter factory; mills; fruit drying opera¬ tions; a factory for processing hides into felt boots, fur coats and caps, etc. The camp had its own city government, a court and prison, and teaching provisions for apprenticing prisoners. In Dolinka there was even a middle school for the children of camp administrators. There were also several institutes: an experimen¬ tal station for plants and an experimental farm for cattle. In all there were some twenty sovkozes with their farms and specializations. Communication between Dolinka and the vari¬ ous sections was by mail or radio .... Fortunatov transferred me to Monshin, an experimental station for cattle. It was twenty kilometers from Dolinka and forty-five kilometers from Karaganda. Monshin had two farms, one for sheep and one for cattle .... The head of the animal husbandry section was Butz . . . approximately forty years of age and one time agricul¬ turalist from the Ukraine .... Butz was later transferred to another camp but our warm friendship continued until his death .... My Brother Hans One day in 1936 I returned from the slaughterhouse and was told: “Go to the dispatch office as soon as possible. A transport from Melitopol has arrived and you may find acquaintances.” Af¬ ter working all day in the cold I found it difficult to leave the ISLAND IN THE STEPPE 119 warm barracks, but my colleagues insisted. Each of them brought me a piece of bread, a bit of sugar and fried liver to take to the newly arrived martyrs. I was learning something about survival. “Tell them Lyonka has sent you!” I asked who Lyonka was but they only smiled. I did what I was told. Amazingly the guard let me pass and the attendant responded to “Lyonka” by letting me read the list of incoming prisoners. There seemed to be no famil¬ iar names when suddenly I read “Pavel Butz.” How did he get on