Gulag

Wallace’s visit coincided, approximately, with the arrival of the “American gifts” in Kolyma. The American Lend-Lease program, which was meant to send weapons and military equipment to assist U.S. allies in their defense against Germany, brought American tractors, trucks, steam shovels, and tools to Kolyma, which was not quite the American government’s intention. It also brought a breath of air from the outside world. Machine parts arrived wrapped in old newspapers, and from them, Thomas Sgovio learned of the existence of the war in the Pacific. Until then, he, like most prisoners, had thought that the Soviet army was doing all of the fighting, with America providing nothing but supplies.⁸⁹ Wallace himself had noticed that Kolyma miners (or the Kolyma Komsomol members pretending to be miners) were wearing American boots, also the fruits of Lend-Lease. When he asked about this—Lend-Lease gifts were not meant to be used in the operation of gold mines—his hosts claimed to have purchased the boots with cash. ⁹⁰

The vast majority of the clothing sent by the United States wound up on the backs of the camp administration and their wives, although some of the clothing did end up being used by camp theatrical productions, and some of the canned pork did make its way to the prisoners. They ate it with relish: many had never seen canned meat before. Better still, they used the empty cans to make drinking cups, oil lamps, pots, pans, stovepipes, and even buttons—hardly imagining the surprise such ingenuity would have occasioned in the country where the cans had originated.⁹¹

Before Wallace left, Nikishov gave an elaborate banquet in his honor. Extravagant dishes, their ingredients carved out of prisoners’ rations, were served; toasts were made to Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Wallace himself made a speech, which included the following memorable words:

Both the Russians and the Americans, in their different ways, are groping for a way of life that will enable the common man everywhere in the world to get the most good out of modern technology. There is nothing irreconcilable in our aims and purposes. Those who so proclaim are wittingly or unwittingly looking for war—and that, in my opinion, is criminal.⁹²

Chapter 21

AMNESTY—AND AFTERWARD

Today I bid farewell to the camp with a cheerful smile,

To the wires that for a year kept freedom away . . .

Will nothing be left of me here,

Will nothing restrain my hurried steps today?

Oh no! Behind the wire I leave a Golgotha of pain

Still trying to pull me to the outer ends of misery.

Behind I leave graves of anguish and the remains of yearning

And secretly shed tears, the beads of our rosary . . .

All that now seems to have floated away, like a leaf blown off a treeAt long last we have broken our ties of bondage.And my heart is no longer filled with hateFor today rainbows break through the clouds in my eyes!

—Janusz Wedów, “Goodbye to the Camp” ¹

MANY OF THE METAPHORS that have been used to describe the Soviet repressive system—the “meat-grinder,” the “conveyor belt”—make it sound relentless, inexorable, uncompromising. Yet at the same time, the system was not static: it kept turning, churning, producing new surprises. If it is true that the years from 1941 to 1943 brought death, illness, and tragedy to millions of Soviet prisoners, it is equally true that for millions of others the war brought freedom.