Robert SCHUMAN was born in the KRASNOYARSK area, not far from UJAR. In 1941 he was sent to the front. He finished the technical college of postal operations and telecommunications in NOVOSIBIRSK, fought somewhere near Moscow during the war and later, in 1943, at the River Don. During the time when he was still serving in the army, on 02.08.42, he was arrested on sections 58-1b, 58-6, 58-10b. Main reason: his own first name, his father's first name and the family name sounded to be of German origin (although Robert Ludwigovich SCHUMAN was a Pole). The investigation proceedings dragged on until October. The examining magistrate was called KOROL. The incident with Korol, when Robert Schuman ate his evening meal. 18 arrestees were exposed to the frost completely naked, until they had frozen to death for the only reason that they were reported having attempted to escape. He did not wash for 6 months; only once, when snow was falling, he washed himself with snow. On 31.01.43 the military troika sentenced him to 7 years.
LIPETSK: a prison cell intended for 20 inmates but 79 were stuffed in there. A Baptist refused to eat the prison food and starved to death. The Soviets were preparing a prisoner transport to the KRASLag. Robert SCHUMAN did not go with them; he was afraid that he might run away to his home grounds. He sharpened one of the hooks from his coat and inflicted on himself a serious gash, thus making the others to believe that he had an open vein. He was given soup in an earthen bowl and a 550 g bread ration.
In May the transport of prisoners under escort started in the direction of MINUSINSK to the TEMLag. Robert SCHUMAN was taken to the 17th forced labor camp sub-sector (a punishment subunit), situated in the settlement of MUKHAN-ZAVOD. Every day eight to 11 prisoners died there while felling trees. The camp warden's name was DISKIN, his wife was the head of the URCh (= Registration Distribution Unit). General Tsivyan was the warden of the TEMLag. The convoy consisted of old people, all Mordvines. The 17th camp sub-sector was situated at the bank of the River Moksha. JAVAS station,
P.O. box: 288/17 (= the P.O. box replaced the name of the penitentiary institution in the mailing address of prisoners). There were Skakun, Grigosaryan and Kotlyarov in their function as brigadiers (= assigning people and check their work). Here the balanda (thin and watery prison camp soup) was made of stinging nettles. About 600 prisoners were kept in this camp. The commandant used to run about with an iron stick in his hands. Habitual methods of suicide: throwing oneself under a falling tree or pretending to escape.
Robert SCHUMAN complimented DISKIN's wife on something and was lucky to be taken on by the URCh. He was given more food, so that he could regain his strength. Later, DISKIN sent him to a camp sub-sector, where they used to work with machines (to the 10th sub-sector, and then to the 20th). There Olga Petrovna Jestigneeva detained on account of a file that had been issued by the Kremlin doctors. And Georgiy Stepanovich Arkharov, intermediary of Mekhlis (= a high-ranking party functionary, member of the NKVD ). In 1937 he had been sentenced to 10 years. "March off to work with no stragglers" (a method of accelerating the assembly and dispatch, in which dogs are used to round up lagging prisoners).
The cutting to size of sleepers: 250 sleepers were the norm (daily output) for a brigade of 12 prisoners doing joint work. The cutting into size of blocks of wood: they had to be chopped by using wedges. The blacksmith's workshop: the prisoners were ordered to fit camouflage nets for the soldiers at the front. The dead were buried in a depth of half a meter. There were counter-revolutionaries (KRs), counter-revolutionary Trotskyite activists (KRTDs), socially dangerous elements (SOEs), members of the family of a traitor to the motherland (ChSIRs).
The camp was a mixed one. The camp: a village, where deported people lived, fenced up with barbed wire and this was, how the whole TEMLag looked like.
General RICHTER and his wife were also detained there, General ARNOLD (he wrote books in the camp: "What kind of Bolshevik country is this?", "The Stalinist Power" - and Robert SCHUMAN read them). Krasnov and Shkuro also served their sentence there. Shkuro thought he did not receive enough balanda and complained: "Folks! How disgusting!"
December 1989, recorded by A. Babiy, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society