Approximately on 05.09.41 the Communists deported the German family BAUER from STRASBURG, canton PALLASOVKA, Autonomous Republic of the Volga-Germans:
At the same time the Communists also took away from STRASBURG David BAUER's younger brother, Andrey Danielovich BAUER, his wife and the children.
The deportees were forced into wagons at PALLASOVKA station and were on their way for about two weeks. They were unloaded in KRASNOYARSK, then taken further down the River Yenissey to the settlement of ATAMANOVO, in the SUKHOBUSIMSK district.
David BAUER and his family stayed in exile in ATAMANOVO, the family of his younger brother came to the village of TOLSTOMYSOVO. Berta BAUER's family also lived in the SUKHOBUSIMSK district during the exile.
During the exile David BAUER had a job at the industrial combine appropriate to his professional experience. In January 1942 David BAUER, Robert BAUER und Alexander BAUER, as well as other men, were forced into the "Trud-Army" (Labour Army).
David BAUER came to the RESHOT lumber zone, one of the KRASLag's (= Krasnoyarsk reform labour camp) sub-divisions; however, he was not expected to do gang work, but to carry out special tasks. In 1946, when the "Trud-Army" zone was abolished, the family returned to ATAMANOVO. Robert BAUER and Alexander BAUER also survived the horrors of the "Trud-Army".
In June 1942 Ella and Rosa BAUER were also called up into the "Trud-Army" (on that occasion they were explained that: "You will be away for three months; it is not necessary to take warm clothes with you"...) and brought to DUDINKA. And in August 1942 they were loaded on vessel "Montcalm" (a ship built by an English firm) and transported to KHATANGA.
They sent several hundred girls there, but on the steamer there were families with children, as well. The journey took them about half a month, because the ship returned several times to Dudinka. The reason for this change, of course, was that just at that time the battleship "Admiral Scheer" and a number of Nazi submarines were on their way to Dickson (one of them they were even able to watch from the ship). The ship was accompanied by ice-breaker "Revolution", whose assistance was needed in the Laptev Sea, when the "Montcalm" had to force its way throught the ice for several days.
Right at the bottom, in the hull, under the supervision of guards, the long-term prisoners from the NORILLag (= Norilsk reform labour camp) were cramped together (it was said that these prisoners had been sentenced to 25 years). For the duration of the whole trip they were not allowed a single time to leave this prison.
The ship went as far as TIKSI, where some of the prisoners were unloaded. It then turned back, headed in the direction of of the Taymyr Peninsula and berthed in NORDVIK, where the remaining prisoners had to disembark; there they were transferred to barges (for the fully loaded ship was sitting too deep in the water to be able to navigate the river) and transported to KHATANGA.
Ella BAUER and Rosa BAUER came to the fishery section in a firm called NOVAYA, situated on the river KHETA, West of KHATANGA. The Communists brought about 15 girls there. In autumn 1943 they were also transferred from NOVAYA to KHATANGA (after their families had already been taken there).
Maria BAUER, together with her son and daughter, as well as Berta BAUER and her younger daughters, were sent by the Communists from their place of exile to UST-PORT (on the banks of the Yenissey, further down from Dudinka) in autumn 1942. They were held there for about a year, then taken to KHATANGA on the same ship "Montcalm" in autumn 1943.
In KHATANGA the deportees worked as fishermen or in the fish cannery. Apart from Germans there were many deported Finns and Latvians, as well as Jewish girls (probably also from Latvia). They all lived in barracks with 2-tier bed boards. They were given clothes and footwear made of reindeer fur, just the same as were worn by the locals.
In this camp Maria BAUER grew seriously ill. In 1945 the medical commission admitted that she had a heart defect; she was given a certificate that due to her poor health she should not live in Northern regions. The commandant's office allowed her to leave, and in autumn 1945 the family took a plane to DUDINKA and from there returned to ATAMANOVO. The year after David BAUER also returned.
Berta BAUER and her children stayed in KHATANGA until the end of their exile, and even after their release they continued to live in the North for a long time.
In ATAMANOVO Ella BAUER soon got married to a local (a descendant of a Pole exiled in the last century), member of the All-Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, who had come back from the front-line and now worked for the river traffic sector. In 1954 he was appointed head of the landing-pier in TURUKHANSK, where Ella BAUER had a job in the commandant's office. She was released from exile on 17.08.55.
In 1950, when they started with the construction of the "Devyatki" Uranium Combine (the colloquial name of the former closed town of Krasnoyarsk-26, today Zheleznogorsk), ATAMANOVO was situated in the "forbidden zone", and all exiles were transferred from there to nearby villages, the 2nd and 3rd section of the "TAIGA" Sovkhoz, so-called podkhoz of the NORILLag (an agricultural institution that provided the NORILLag with vegetables and other agricultural products).
Sept. 23, 1995, recorded by V.S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society