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.”
Guarding Each Other
Gulag inmates were forced to be complicit in their own repression. Prisoners were constantly being watched, but not only by the guards. Prisoners were watching each other. Some prisoners worked as informants—telling camp authorities the secrets of their fellow inmates in exchange for better rations or to get a privileged job in the barracks or the kitchen. Others turned informer in order to avoid punishment or the revelation of some secret that a camp official was using as blackmail. To this day, the Gulag camp surveillance system remains shrouded in secrecy, the only section of the central Gulag archive still marked "top secret."
One official recalled to author Adam Hochschild: "People were carefully selected for this purpose, worthy people. They were reliable. They signed special papers, they were taught how to handle weapons. They were positioned at the watchtowers and they were guarding…themselves!"