Today we are going to talk about the brilliant Norilsk radiologist Karl Denzel who is now 85 years old.
Historical data: Karl Denzel was born on the 3rd of January 1917. He graduated from Medical Institute in Odessa. In 1941, instead of sending him to the front, he was mobilized to the labor army, to Chelyabinsk, because of his nationality (he was German) and then further to Norilsk by prisoner transport. He was working within the Norilsk health care system for forty years. After his rehabilitation in 1957 he was appointed senior radiologist of the town and head of the radiological departments of the sections of oncology and tuberculosis treatment. He was a remarkable diagnostician, who both medical experts as well as patients unconditionally accepted as a man of great trust. He was willing to give sick people professional advice at any time of the day – even at nighttime. In 1983 he went on pension after having been invested by the title of an „Excellent collaborator of public health of the RSFSR“; he was furthermore awarded the medal “Veteran of Labor”. He died in 1993.
The interview with Denzel was recorded ten years ago and is now published for the first time. The meeting took place in the home of his daughter Irina, and Doctor Serafim Snamenskiy was present, as well.
- Karl Karlovich, how long has it been, since your ancestors came to Russia?
- They came due to an agreement with the Russian imperator Catherine, who was the German princess Sophia Frederike Auguste before she got married. She is attributed to the idea of resettling hundreds of thousands of Germans to Russian territory.* She had made this decision with the following view: she intended to get the entirely backward agriculture in Russia going. But her plans and attempts were without success . The Germans founded small colonies along the river Volga, in the Caucasus, Middle-Asia and Ukraine.
My ancestors got to the Zaporozhye area. Our grandfather was a wealthy man. My father, unless he concerned himself with his tasks as a farmer, occasionally would teach at school, although he had not have high-school graduation. Nonetheless, his school education was sufficed to give lessons to children in primary school.
- Did they recall your nationality at the time when the war broke out?
- I was mobilized as a military doctor (3rd rank), but they did not send me to the front, as all Germans were detached from active military service. I was sent to Chelyabinsk, and in 1942 the „isolated“ me (put in prison; translator’s note). By decision of the special department I was sentenced for being a member of an anti-Soviet group, which ostensibly intended to commit sabotage – more precisely – to blow up the milling workshop, although the start of construction of this factory started only one year after my arrest.
In the Norillag (Norilsk camp; translator’s note) there were many „Chelyabinsk“ people. Doctor Ludwig, German, as well, got to Norilsk a little later; I had already got acquainted with him in Chelyabinsk.
- How did Norilsk receive you?
- They place me in the 9th camp sector, where Chinese, Japanese, a couple of Vietnamese and Germans did their time. I remained there until the revolt broke out in 1953. Sometime later they transferred our camp to where the 6th sub-section had been organized before (to the industrial area), and ours was then replenished by remaining forced laborers; it was then called camp sector N° 5, the Gorlag (mining camp).
When I came to the Central Camp Hospital I had to face a choice: to either become an informer or leave the medical service department. I decided not to become an informer; hence, they assigned me to the technical school construction project. I worked there for a long time. Of course, life under camp conditions was very hard. I do recall the feeling of absolute lack of rights. I was already working for the 7th camp sub-sector, when they came to arrest nationals of the Baltic States. One of them had come down with pneumonia, and the Latvian doctor said: „I am not going to release this seriously ill person from medical treatment yet.“ This was Doctor Prushanskiy. He was shot in one of the rooms of the inpatient sector, together with other arrested persons.
When camp inmates died, usually nobody would pay the slightest attention to this occurrence. I was working in Kalargon for some time. One of these days the weather was extraordinarily uncomfortable and cold, and the horse, which we were transporting water with, suddenly suffered a hemorrhage. Four or even six of our men pulled the animal into the drying room trying to save its life without success. That was a real tragedy, but when a human being died, then this was not considered a tragedy at all. After the death of the poor horse, workers of the house-keeping service had to carry the water drums on their own shoulders.
- Yefrosinia Kersnovskaya worked for the Central Camp Hospital for some time. Did you know her?
- Kersnovskaya – she was a strong-minded woman. Last time I saw her in Yessentuky. She lived for her own in a dug-out. As she was an invalid, she was always taken care of by some girls. She kept a vegetable garden, and in spite of a fracture of the neck of femur she used to lie on the ground, on her undamaged side, digging over the ground with one hand. While she was in the camp, she completed the doctoral research studies of the Estonian medic Leonhard Bernhardovich Mardna by illustrations.
- Which other remarkable people did fate bring you together with while you were in the Norillag?
- With Olga Yeliseevna Benois from the famous Benois family of artists; she painted realistic pictures during her time in the Central Camp Hospital. I also remember Georgiy Zhzhenov from the stage at Nulevoi Piket Place (ore reloading point in Norilsk; translator’s note), where Vladimir Vengerov took me every now and then during my camp term (later he managed the Norilsk Theater and our entire cultural life generally). He had already been released from camp detention at that time. He was the assistant of Viktor Alekseevich Kuznetsov, the famous surgeon, who arrived in the Central Camp Hospital in 1943. The hospital disposed of an emergency unit, where I was usually on duty at night-time. They used to make X-ray photos that were followed by immediate surgical interventions.
- And did you know Urbantsev? I have the impression that you resemble him in temperament?
- Nikolai Nikolaevich Urbantsev came to the Central Camp Hospital to attend our meetings in the evening. A very self-controlled man. However, I did not like Yelizaveta Ivanovna Urbantseva at all. She would never gaze at me, but always whisper behind my back: „This Karl Karlovich – he is like a table. Whether you tell him something or not: he was sentenced to 20 years – he never listens or takes anybody’s advice.” And then she would ask everybody: „Who is he living together with?“
At this point Denzel was supported by his colleague Doctor Snamenskiy:
- Urbantseva was an administrator. When you recall her – then your good mood gets all spoiled. In her opinion they had sentenced you to a 20 years‘ camp detention, which meant that by order you were not allowed to be desirous in any respect (Doctor Denzel knew how to rather successfully take advantage of women, and every now and then he felt the urge for freedom and even crawled underneath the barbed wire fence. In order that the guards did not descry him in the snow, he covered himself in a bed sheet as a precaution. – Editor’s note). We were supposed to behave in an exemplary way and try our best to oblige her. Once someone wrote a letter to the newspaper staff, submitting the proposal to name the hospital in Oganer (remote district of Norilsk; translator’s note.), which was still under construction, Urvantseva Hospital, but we did not know her as a woman doctor at all, just as a supervisor. .
- After release you were probably confronted with a lot of unpleasant situations, weren’t you?
- The fruits of propaganda and agitation left their marks on people . Once I bought a book in one of the stores. I asked the salesgirl to wrap it, and she very plumply replied: „Incredible – they accord books to prisoners instead of selling them to human beings“.
The conversation was again continued by Karl Denzel:
- Pavel Yevdokimovich Nikischin, the founder of the pathologic-anatomic service in Norilsk, also served his sentence with us. Before his arrest he had worked for the Academy of Science and knew Pavlov. He was a good man, but his sons – they were all senior officials, colonels – dissociated themselves from him. In Norilsk he tried to restore his glorious name and reputation; he held lessons and managed courses of instruction for would-be nurses. But his efforts were of no avail. I remember when they arranged an evening for free staff members coming from among the intelligentsia and deliberately missed to also invite Nikishin and Semyon Naumovich Mankin (before his arrest he had been director of the Institute of Microbiology), although they had already been released. Nishikin took this to heart. He was a kind-hearted man. His friend died during the Civil War, having conjured Pavel before his death to take care of his family then. He was closer associated with them than the own father. They refused to rehabilitate him: in the late 1950s a letter arrived with the municipal health authority from his friend’s widow. She asked him to go the cemetery and shout loudly in front of Nikishin’s grave: „Pavel! You have been rehabilitated!“
After the GULAG stopped existing, many desired to return to their home towns and villages:
- After having been released I worked as radiologist for the polyclinic at
Nulevoi Piket.
In 1955 my wife came to see me there for the first time after my release from
the camp; two years later she stayed for ever. I could have left the place after
my rehabilitation in 1957; however, I decided to stay in Norilsk. Many people
acted the same way…
Recorded by V. Vachaeva, Senior Conservator of the museum in Norilsk
* A German settlement existed in Moscow already middle of the 17th century. The influx of foreigners to Russia increased under the rule of Peter I. and his successors. Most of the German colonists, however, appeared in Russia in the last third of the 18th and early in the 19th centuries.
„Polar-Truth“, 04.01.2002