Life in prison

After they had taken us down one by one, all the women who had been brought from the station, those who had been brought forward, sat down without the right to move, surrounded by dogs and guards. They ordered us to get up and stand straight and still.

A few dozen men, probably convicts, came into the yard and, on the orders of the Security Service officers, we stripped completely naked and took off our clothes.

These men took our clothes, our dresses and underwear, because that’s all we had on and with us. They took our clothes to the drying room for decontamination and disinfection and put us naked in the rooms. The cathedral was divided into bunk rooms, and in the rooms there were bunk beds, four rows of them. The beds that had no mattress had been washed with chlorine water and were still wet, we were naked, that’s how the prison welcomed us.

We were hungry, too, because some of the bread we had been given in Tighina had gone mouldy. It was evening. Three secretaries came to check on us and made some rude jokes about us being naked. They told us they weren’t going to give us anything to eat today, that they weren’t prepared for so many guests. But we poor souls, more morally than physically exhausted, fell asleep, leaving our fate in God’s hands.

The next day, at four o’clock in the morning, we were awakened by the jingle of heavy keys opening the door of our room. They counted us to make sure none of us had escaped. After them came other men. Some brought boiling water in a large cauldron, others 300 grams of bread each. The first day in prison passed and we stood there naked, shivering in the cold. The second day was the same as the first, especially as every morning they threw 2-3 buckets of chlorine water on our floor to disinfect it, and we had to sit on it wet.

In the evening, when the check came, we asked for our clothes. We got a very calm answer: “But what? Doesn’t it fit you? There are many of you and we can’t decontaminate them so quickly, be patient!

Every morning a few militiamen would come to the checkpoint, put on some gloves and with their rough hands perform gynaecological and anal examinations on all the women, lest we hide a spy note or some other object. It was something terrible, unimaginable, done to destroy the nervous system. Every morning the same check, and we were all naked. And after they had brought us the remains of our clothes, the check was still carried out.

On the third morning, after the check, after they had given us the bread, still 300 grams, they brought us our clothes, but they were in a terrible state. Some were even burned.

We were happy to cover ourselves with what we had. There were 90 women in the room instead of 60. When we slept, we could only turn around at a time, because there were 10 women on each rack.

I must say that there were no doctors or medicine for the political prisoners. If you got sick, you’d lie under the planks on which we slept – until you got better or died, which, of course, happened more often than not.

The daily routine was as follows: we got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to receive 300 grams of bread and a cup of boiled water; at 6 o’clock the guard came to count us, to see if anyone had escaped during the night, and no one came until 5 o’clock in the afternoon; at 5 o’clock they took us one cell at a time to the toilet, that was all a prisoner was allowed for these natural necessities; at 7 o’clock the guard came again, and that was the end of our day. We women were allowed to sleep as long as we wanted, but the men were not.

Many women, especially the old and weak, got diarrhoea after a few months of this life. And since they only took us to the toilet once a day, they put a wooden barrel in our room for that purpose. This made life even more unbearable. The stench was so bad that we begged the sentry who stood outside our door in the corridor to let us take out the ‘parasa’ – as the barrel was called – twice a day. After much pleading with the prison’s leaders, the request was granted.

We got permission to take out the parasa, but none of the women wanted to take it out because they felt it was humiliating. Then my cousin and I, who had been arrested with me, offered to do this service, considering that, according to Christ’s teaching, “it is good to be your brother’s servant”.

By taking the “parasa” to the pit, which was quite far from our room, and washing it there with a broom dipped in chlorine and water, we gained two advantages: firstly, we stayed in the air for half an hour, and secondly, more time passed. Of course, we were led by a guard who kept an eye on us, but he was a very good Ukrainian and he told us: “Take your time, stay in the air!”

There was almost no light in our room because there was a small window above us, which gave an obscure light, so we could hardly see each other, and each convict was only allowed 10 minutes of air a day.

One night I dreamed that the Saviour appeared in this little window with a crown of thorns on his head, crucified on the Holy Cross. And blood was dripping from his head, around the crown, and Jesus was moving his head from side to side in pain, and then more blood was flowing. I wanted to go and wipe His wounds, to stop the blood, and Jesus said to me: “Do you see how much I am suffering unjustly, even innocently?

I woke up! Yes, I woke up from my sleep, but I was different! Jesus had given me peace, strength, tranquillity and an indescribable comfort. This dream followed me through all the years in prison and in Siberia and all my life. I say this even now, after I got out of prison, that He, Jesus, supported me and strengthened me in all the torments and difficulties I went through in prison and in the camp and after I got out.

One day, as I was going out to wash the “parasa”, I heard a faint voice calling our names. We turned around but saw no one.

My cousin looked up and shouted so loudly that I got scared. Our husbands were upstairs on the sixth floor. I looked up too, and behind the bars, at a window, I saw our husbands’ faces. It was more their shadows than them. Skinny, yellow faces.

My husband asked me, very surprised: “How come you’re here too?” I replied that I’d rather be with him than at home.

Talking between prisoners was strictly forbidden and severely punished, but we had our good Ukrainian with us. He approached us and I told him the truth.

He took pity on us and asked us not to say a word in the room so that neither he nor we would be punished. Of course we promised and thanked him for his kindness. Since then, every time we went out with the “parasa”, our husbands were waiting for us at the window. When the Ukrainian was with us, we talked to him, but when we were with another guard, we just waved so they wouldn’t notice us.

This happiness lasted for about three months. But what a pain it was for us when one day we went out to work and our husbands were no longer at the window. We returned to our room very sad.

The next day some Security Service officers came to the room and ordered us out of our room on the 4th floor and moved us to the 1st floor. It was a smaller room because the number of people had decreased with the death of many. Here, God willing, we were more Bessarabic. Now we could speak Romanian, because in the big room there were more Russian women and they didn’t allow us to speak Romanian. My cousin and I were always thinking about where our husbands might be.

The next day, in the evening, at 5 o’clock, when they usually took the prisoners out for necessities, we were sitting by the door and at some point we heard in our dear language: “I wonder where our wives are. And we answered: “Here, in this room, we are with you”.

At night, around one o’clock, there was a noise in the corner of the room where we slept. I moved closer to the wall and heard my husband’s voice. I don’t know how the men managed to make a hole in the wall and we started talking to each other. We were 4 women and they were 4 men. We were whispering, but we couldn’t see each other.

My husband asked me: “Tell me, when were you arrested and for what?

I told him and ended with the question: “Why are you surprised that they took me?

Then he told me about the torture he endured during the ten days he was held in the district and then another seven days in Tighina. He was accused of espionage and of being in direct contact with Hitler. Neither was true. He refused to sign the accusation.

The interrogation was carried out in the most brutal way, rolling him on the floor and kicking him in the stomach and chest with boots. They beat him so hard that they took out his kidneys. His stomach and lungs were destroyed. He could barely speak and said to me: ‘I don’t know how I lasted 16 days, but on the 17th day the instructor showed me the file with my name on it and said: ‘We’ve had enough of your stubbornness. If you don’t sign the charge sheet now, your wife will be here tonight. I was terrified and asked, “If I sign, won’t you touch my wife?” They said very firmly, “Of course not,” and I signed, taking upon myself the charge of espionage, which carries the death penalty. They haven’t bothered me since, but what’s the use, I’m an invalid, I feel I won’t live much longer. I was sure I had saved you, so I’m surprised to see you here. They must have no word of honour. I beg you, if they haven’t examined you, don’t object, sign whatever they give you first, otherwise they will torture you until you sign.

As there were four men in his cell and four women in our cell, we took turns talking. We had to watch out for the guards and spies among us, Russian girls of course. This went on for a month, and one night at about four o’clock my husband knocked on the wall and said to me: ‘They’re taking us away from here, we don’t know where they’re taking us, we’ll never see each other again. I beg you, if God helps you to get out, give my love to our child, tell him that I, dying innocent under severe torture, ask him to be a man of humanity and honesty”.

That was the end of our very happy marriage of 15 years.

After that, our life with our cousin became even harder. Every day they would take two or three women from our room to investigate. They’d come back with bruises, barely able to move. After letting them recover for a few days, they’d take them away again and wouldn’t leave them until they’d signed what they wanted.

My investigation day came. I remembered the words of the Saviour: “And they will bring you before the rulers to judge you; do not be afraid of what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will speak for you…”. I crossed myself and said: “Lord, into Your hands I commend my life”.

They took me out of the room and put me in a “van”, a black car, closed on all sides, of course, and some other people, and took us in an unknown direction, because we could not see anything. It was dark as night in the car.

The guards with us had an electric torch in one hand and a revolver in the other. We stopped. They took us out of the van, blindfolded us, tied our hands behind our backs and led us into a building. We walked for a long time through a long corridor, hearing desperate screams, sobs, cries of those who were investigated.

In an indescribable state of mind, I reached a room where my eyes and hands were untied. Then they put me in an iron cage where I could only stand. They locked me in and I stayed there for four hours. Then a guard came and took me to a luxurious office. I found myself in front of a Security Service lieutenant, about 50 years old. I was reassured because I knew from the women I had investigated that it was very fortunate for those who were investigated by older men and, on the contrary, very unfortunate if they were investigated by a young man.

He asked me to sit down. The revolver was on the table. He took out a large file.

He leafed through it for half an hour without saying a word. After looking at me for a long time, he asked me what I was under arrest for.

I calmly replied, “I don’t know, I’m asking you because I know I’ve done nothing against the Soviet government!

Then he said to me: “It is true that you have done nothing wrong, but since there is a war on and your husband has been arrested, you have been taken away as a disgruntled member of the family”. Then he began to write in a large folder and kept writing for two hours.

During this time, a Jewish Security Service major – I recognised him by his accent – came into the office and asked him: “Has she admitted guilt? If not, close the windows and give her a good beating. You’ll see how she’ll confess! He left. I was like a motionless pillar, without any feeling. My investigator said: “Are you afraid? Don’t be afraid, I won’t touch you, I have nothing to do with you”.

Then he wanted to read me what he had written. I stopped him by saying: “Don’t read it to me, because I will sign whatever is written there, although I am not guilty, because I have no power to prove it; your power is on the table,” and I showed him the loaded revolver. “Even if it were a death sentence, I should be very happy.”

He said in astonishment, “Why are you so desperate? You are young and have your whole life ahead of you.”

I said, “But what do I need my life for? My husband is struggling with me, our child is left alone in this world. I want death!” and I burst into tears.

He said: ‘You are not guilty of anything, you are being taken as a member of the family of the arrested man who is guilty of signing that statement. Now there is a war going on, I am very sorry about you, but we cannot release you; but as soon as the war is over, in which we will be victorious, you will go home”.

I signed without knowing what it was, and after he rang the bell, the guard came, took me out of the office, blindfolded me and tied my hands, and took me out of that wretched building where there was so much torture. She put me in the van with the people who had brought me, most of them sobbing with pain, after an agonising investigation.

I arrived at the prison and when my roommates saw me return unharmed, they were very surprised that I had been so lucky. After that, the days passed monotonously according to the unmentionable Soviet prison schedule. Food: 300 grams of bread, boiled water, no air, no sun.

Of course we got weaker every day, but for every bad thing there is a good one. We slept a lot due to weakness and hunger.

On 20 February 1942 they took us out of the prison where we had been, in our robes, and took us to another prison, 40 km from Kazan, at minus 40 degrees Celsius. When we asked how we could walk in the freezing cold, we were told: ‘Donțt worry, those who don’t resist a cart will follow the group that will take them to the cemetery. We are not interested in your lives! You are enemies of the people!”

There were about 300 of us, with a lot of secretaries behind us. We walked at a fast pace according to the order, and those who were sick, weak and old fell down, and they put them in the camps that were on the way.

We arrived in the village of Sfiaj, where there was a monastery that had been turned into a prison. In the courtyard, at a table, was an inspection committee, where they kept us for about four hours. Walking along the road we didn’t feel the cold, we were even sweating, but after sitting in the prison yard for so many hours we began to shiver with cold and looked forward to entering a warm building.

But what a disappointment! Late in the evening they took us to a large room with no fire and broken windows covered with mats. By a stroke of luck, they put twice as many of us in the room as they should have, and we, exhausted, lay down on the mats on the floor, warming each other like piglets, and fell asleep.

As for food, the same story as in Kazan, they didn’t give us anything, saying they didn’t know there were so many of us. We stayed like this in the cold for 2 days, until they put up the windows and built a small fire. Here too, as in all prisons, the same programme and the same 300 grams of bread a day with boiled water. That’s Soviet prison law, the prisoner had to be hungry and stay in the cold.

In March I was called to the prison office and given a paper to sign.

I asked, “Am I allowed to know what I’m signimg?”

With a wry smile, he told me: “The group of seven… is sentenced to eight years in correctional labour”.

That was the court’s verdict, but it didn’t say what the accusation was. The seven people were: my husband and I, my cousin and her husband, my nephew, an agricultural engineer, and two teachers from the neighbouring village, friends of ours. How simple and easy. We were in Kazan and three people tried us in Moscow while we were away. We signed with our innocent heads bowed.

We stayed in this prison until August 1942, when they took us out and put us in dirty coal wagons, saying: “Go to work, we’ve fed you enough for nothing! And they took us in an unknown direction. For the journey they gave us two loaves of bread as black as the earth, some small salted fish and a five-gallon barrel of water.

And we set off again, not knowing where or why. They put us with the women criminals, who, being stronger, took the bread from the weaker ones and ate it; they did the same with the water. I was in such a state that I couldn’t eat anything. I had pellagra from hunger. My whole body was covered with small wounds. I went under a shelf and sat there waiting for death, which had become an ideal. I thought that because of the dirt in the wagon I would get gangrene and escape all the misfortunes that awaited me. But it’s all in God’s hands. From death comes life, and vice versa.

A week later, exhausted by thirst, hunger and fatigue, we arrived at a railway station. From there we walked about 20 miles to a camp for invalids. In the courtyard we were met by a committee of prisoner doctors and secretaries, who examined each of us thoroughly and divided us into two groups: the stronger were sent to the “recovery” barracks and the weakest to the “death” barracks.

I was lucky enough to be assigned to a young Armenian doctor in her 40s, with kind, beautiful eyes. She asked me how old I was.

I told her I was 36 and a half. She didn’t believe me and looked at my file.

She was convinced I wasn’t lying and said, “You look 70. Were you fat when you went to prison?”

I told her I weighed 96 kilos.

She said: “That’s why you got out alive, because you were living off your fat.

She weighed me and I had only 45 kilos. I was dizzy all the time, weak and powerless.

She asked me what I did when I was free and I told her I was a teacher. Then she said: “Look, I’ll take you to my hospital to work. I thanked her. A woman took me to the hospital. I was happy to go outside after a year and three months without light or air.

But as I walked around the camp yard, I noticed something sad – many blind and mad people. I asked the woman guiding me what this meant. She told me that those who don’t want to work go mad. They sit and think about the injustices done to them, they are given the minimum portion of 300 grams of bread and in the end they starve to death. The blind, because of suffering and nerves, get blindness, which is never cured. I was frightened, but I understood that the only salvation here was to work conscientiously.

In the evening they gave me a plate of soup from the hospital, with a potato in it and no salt. I couldn’t eat that either. Then they took me to sleep in a wooden hut with empty shelves.

(Blondina Gobjila – The Sufferings of Mother Blondina, a Martyr of Siberia, 3rd edition, Ed. Sihăstria Monastery, 2010)