Prisoner: Lev Kopelev
“An order: Everyone out. The prison was being moved to keep up with the front. We were packed together in an open truck, with our belongings. Two guards with submachine guns sat on wooden benches on either side of us, and two others, with police dogs, guarded the back. ‘No talking! No squirming about! Any move to get up will be taken as an attempt to escape! The guards will shoot without warning!’ Turning off the highway into a wood, we drove through a gate and stopped before a long, white, two-story structure. We were herded into a large basement room and told to sit down on the floor. Roll call. By surname. In reply, you were supposed to give your first name and patronymic; specify the statute under which you were arrested; state whether you had been sentenced or were awaiting trial; and if sentenced, specify the number of years.”
Guard Violence
Gulag guards endured their own brutal existence, and through a combination of frustration and indoctrination they frequently directed that brutality at inmates. In this videoclip, former prisoner Oleg Volkov recalls some of the violence at one of the Soviet Union’s first Gulag camps, in the Solovetsky islands.