Olga Kuskova, 11th term
Project leader: Galina Nikolaevna Gonchar
Troitsa Secondery School
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the day when Russia gained the victory over Fascist Germany, a number of people who were working in the rear at that time, were presented with medals and gifts of money in the premises of our local House of Culture.
Beside me sat my grandmother. She did not receive anything at all, and I was astonished at that, for I was very well aware of the bitter life that lay behind her. „They certainly did not award me anything because of the story concerning those few ears“, she sighed. I felt so sorry for her, and it was hard for me to see her walking out of the hall with tearstained eyes.
Later she told me the story of her life.
Frieda Gottfriedovna Ibe was born in the village of Alt-Urbach in 1923. In September 1941 she was deported with many others from the Saratov Region to the Porovskoe District, where she was immediately registered with the commander’s office of the village. They were deported as a result of the ukase of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated the 28 August 1941 and due to their being of German nationality.
„ Early in the morning some „custodian of the law“ (i.e. a community militiaman) came up to our house to inform us that we were given one hour to pack all mostly needed belongings.
Nobody told us where they intended to evacuate us and for what reason. We just took along what we were able to take with our own hands. At first they took us to a landing stage, where we were asked to board a steamship. Soon the cargo compartment was all crammed with people. Later we were forced to change on a train consistng of freight cars only. When we reached the village of Troitsa, they assigned housing space in an untenanted house. And then we began to work for the kolkhoz farm“.
In 1942 Frieda was mobilized into the labour army. About 50 people were called up and immediately sent to the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR to work for the timber industry. They were to fell trees, which afterwards had to be sawn up into pieces 2 metres in length and then pull them down to the road. They were rationed to just 800 gramms of bread, tea and sometimes soup or a little porridge a day. Many people died because of hard labour and permanent malnutrition.
The labour armists were accomodared in barracks. Not far from these barracks there was a cornfield, which was watched by a guard. Nevertheless, some hungry workers managed to get to the field unnoticed by the watchman and collect a handful of ears, which they later-on intended to use for the cooking of porridge or roasting.
Some day Frieda Gottfriedovna als decided to commit such an act of desperation. For a long time she was trying to persuade her sister to accompany her, but Lisa was afraid of punishment and therefore refused to take part in the action. Thus, Frieda set off all alone; However, she even failed to get all the way up to the field. Militiamen detained her and took her to the commandant’s office. Frieda Gottfriedovna was indicted for theft on the 11th November 1943. The permanent court of the Buryet-Mongolian ASSR with the Dzhidlag NKVD sentenced her to a 10 years’ (!) detention and sent her to one of the corrective labour camps of the Komi ASSR, where she was to serve her sentence.
On the camp territory there were both barracks for women and for men, with about 40 occupants each. They worked on plantations, where different kinds of vegetables were raised: carrots, beets, leek and others. Here the conditions of life were slightly better than with the trud army. The received better food and, unless they violated they existing regime, they were even allowed to receive parcels from their relatives. The prisoners were provided with clothes and bedding, as well. From a friend who lived in the same barracks Frieda Gottfriedovna learned that women having given birth to a child were released earlier then the others. She believed in the stories she was told, the more since there was even a nursery in the camp. Some time later she gave birth to a son, but was neither released immediately nor a little later. All the camp authorities decided to do was to transfer her to a job where she did not have to do hard labour. They assigned her to work for the laundry.
During leisure time the prisoners were permitted to be on the loose on the entire camp territory. They were even allowed to cross the settlement limits, admittedly until 7 p.m. at the latest. In case someone did not return by nightfall, they started a big search operation, which in most cases ended in an execution.
Frieda Gottfriedowna Ibe was released from the corrective labour camp on the 12 May 1953. And sent back to ther previous place of special resettlement in the Pirovskoe District, where she still lives today, always making desperate efforts not to recall those horrible years.
The life of one of the residents of the hamlet of Belskoe – Matrena Vasilevna Soloveva – turned out to be even worse. When the war began, her husband went to the front, leaving her back with six schildren and a diseased mother-in-law. They received a bread ration of 400 grs a day. It was painful and horrid to watch the eyes of the starving children day after day.
The situation made Matrena go too far. When they were winnowing wheat on the barn floor, she poured a couple of grains into her chirkies (shoes with short bootlegs and thick white felt soles; translator’s note) in order to take them home after work. However, some authorized militia man wrote a report on what had happened. The Supreme Court sentenced Matrena Vasilevna to a 10 years’ detention; her children were taken to a childrens’ home. Matrena Vasilevna served her sentence in the North-Yeniseysk Corrective Labour Camp. She worked for the timber industry, and in the winter she often spent hours in the waist-high snow. The trunks were transported away on sledges, which were just a little smaller than a sleigh.
Due to the exhaustion of the prisoners it sometimes happened that they were no longer able to hold the sledges during the loading process, so that they swooped down the and quite often even ran over a person. Once, Matrena Vasilevna was unable to cope with such a sledge, she was too weak to stop it from moving down the hill untimely: “ It just turned over and fell upon me. Afterwards I spent a long time in the camp hospital; I was sure I would die. But you will always find a few could people on this world; I found them, too, and they rescued me – and I am inexpressively greatful to them”.
Matrena Vasilevna was released together with her little daughter; she also seeked out all her other children and went to fetch them from the childrens’ homes. Her husband was killed at the front. In spite of all difficulties and adversities of life Matrena Vasilevna managed to bring up her seven children.
In front of you there are two fates which were entirely mangled by Stalin’s regime. What were these people prosecuted for? Why were they punished in a way that is inconceivable for commonsense? For NOTHING? Everything is very simple. Everyone who was born at that time sooner or later found himself thrown into a harsh world. Nothing but pangsof hunger during the war, the silent wait for one’s death, resettlement, disquietude and sorrow, permanent fright in the camps and tears, bitter tears of agony. It seems that the people have overcome the grief and pain of this period of life, but nevertheless those feelings pursue them till the very end of their life.
The memoirs of Frieda Gottfriedovna Ibe
The memoirs of Matrena Soloveva