Prisoner: Gustav Herling
“The small bath-hut was always full of murky grey light which filtered in through the dirty window-panes, and of steam which rose from a huge vat of boiling water. Before going in, we handed over our clothes to be deloused, and received in turn a piece of grey soap the size of a domino counter. When the clothes had been deloused they were brought in, hung on rings on a long pole, by an elderly priest who, sloping the pole, let the bundles fall on to the floor of the passage. It was pleasant to feel the hard plasters of heated clothing on a clean body. There was no other way of changing clothes; we went to the bath-house once every three weeks, and these visits were the only time that we really washed ourselves.”
Introduction
The atrocities of working and living conditions in the camps went unnoticed as Soviet authorities promoted the Gulag as a progressive educational prison system to the general populace and prisoners. Posters displayed at the camps reinforced labor—at whatever cost—as a heroic and honorable contribution to the state.
Movie Transcription
Over many Gulag camp gates, a slogan declared: “Labor in the USSR is a matter of honor, glory, courage and heroism.”
In the barracks, posters screamed, “Glory to Stalin, the Greatest Genius of Mankind.”
At the work place, banners urged, “More Gold for Our Country, More Gold for Victory!”
These proclamations of the glories of socialism, the heroism of Soviet labor, and the possibilities of reeducation and reintegration into Soviet society sat uneasily in an environment saturated with death and deprivation.
Millions survived their Gulag, but they would have laughed at the notion that they were re-educated. Most would have used words such as “traumatized,” “brutalized,” or “disfigured”—terms not featured on the propaganda posters.