Man cannot escape his fate. Nobody is able to predict what will happen to him next, what is in store for him in the near future.
On the 31st October 1936, Zenta Skuya and Janis Schnejders, who had just got married that very day, could scarcely have a foreboding of their fate, which would tear them apart less than four years later, and they would never have imagined that they would never see eachother again.
On the 14th June 1941, Janis Schnejders – assistant medical director of the Livansk hospital-, his wife Zenta and both minor sons, Janis and Uldis, left the country, where their ancestors had already lived centuries before.
The freight cars transporting the future “prisoners” away, set course for the Ural Mountains and to Kirov, and then the family members of the “enemies of the people” were taken to remote places in Siberia.
Thus, Janis Schnejders found himself in the Viatlag, his wife and children in the virgin, trackless taiga.
Janis began to work as a doctor for the infirmary of the camp sub-sector. His wife was handed out a little net and a bottle of tar to protect her from mosquitos, as well as a mortise chisel with a long handle and a whetstone enabling her to whet and grind her new “exotic” production equipment.
In the forest Zenta learned about the meaning of the different letter markings and ribbons, and she was told that this was her place of work from now on. They showed her how to hold the mortise chisel.
At the same time they explained to her that the work she was supposed to do, strictly speaking, was men’s work. If, however, she was to receive her own 400 grs bread ration plus the same quantity for her children, then she would have to work hard and had better not neglected her new job. They furthermore told her that she was expected to cut about twothousand notches into the pine-trees within a period of 24 hours, which meant walking a distance of not less than 20 kms.
She was clearly explained and shown that a forest is no park grounds and the grass growing there cannot be compared to an English lawn, for in some places it grew rampant up to the waistline, sometimes even up to the head or even higher. And they stressed out that nobody woul remove the cut-down trees, so that she would have to climb over the trees, which lay scattered around, and overcome various obstacles of 1,5 or even 2 metres in height.
They left her behind in the wood, speculating about wether or not she would manage to get back to the camp on her own or if it would become necessary to search for her. They had informed her that, in case she had not returned to the camp by nightfall, they would strike on a piece of railway. It’s sound could be heard over a long, long distance. When she distinguished this sound, she should simply follow it. Maybe she would be able to “come home” on her own. Failing this, they would organize a search detachment the next morning, which. in most cases, would find the lost individual. The main thing was to have the presence of mind to never lose hope and be perfectly convinced that they would find her soon.
This was the beginning of Zenta Schnejder’s work life.
Right in the middle of the taiga there were five decayed wooden barracks, entirely secluded from the rest of the world, and this is why they called the settlement Gorevka (place of grief; translator’s note). Here lived and worked people weakened by hunger, exhausted by all the hard labour they were forced to do. They had no idea, why they had been taken to this place and for how long this terrible punitive detention would drag on.
At nightfall the whole zone plunged into the darkness.
Myriads of gnats, bugs and blackbeetles would not allow the prisoners to come to rest, neither during the day nor at night.
The only comfort was a fired oven. A fade, trembling light penetrated through its open door. There, beside the oven, they tidied and dried their clothes, which had become all wet during the night, got their tools ready for the next work day and talked endlessly about life, their fate and food.
In Gorevka it was extremely difficult to make use of pine-torches for illumination. The chips of pinewood were just unsuitable for this purpose. They quickly burned down and spread out an extremely unpleasant smell. Resinous lumps of soot flew through the air and stuck on skin and clothes. However, the chips of pinewood were not entirely useless.
By means of these hot pieces of wood one could very well roast all the bugs running up and down the walls. They would puff up by the heat and then drop to the florr dead.
At nighttime those, who had survived, came crawling out of the cracks and clefts, wriggled up to the ceiling of the barracks and from there attack the sleeping people like dive-bombers.
The prisoners, tired out and exhausted by daily hard labor, did not react on the bites of the bugs. They were sleeping soundly.
Those bugs which had been rushed during the night, left countless bloodstains on the bedclothes. The spots became visible only the following morning, but the people did not pay the slightest attention to them.
They got up, ran over to the food supply point to receive their watery soup, which was usually dressed by adding a teaspoonful of vegetable oil. Meanwhile the bugs would creep away and hide in their secret hiding-places to relax, in order to fall upon the weakened prisoners again in the darkness of the following night.
Gorevka was about 12 kms away from the central section of the Zavodovsk chemistry and forestry state enterprise.
Twice a week a horse-drawn vehicle arrived to supply bread and other foodstuffs; it also brought along the mail. In all other cases messages were delivered on foot – if, for example, sameone had fallen ill or the authorities sent for someone for instruction or reasons of punishment. Officially, other kinds of messages did not even exist at all.
The greatest evil were all the biting flies and mosquitos hiding in the grass. They attacked the passing by prisoners in huge swarms and stuck on their heads and backs like a compact black mass – swarming and buzzing. When putting the flat of the palm down one’s back, one could feel the thin mash of squashed gnats. The cattle could not stand these invasions of biting insects, either. It had to be kept in stables.
The one and only rescue from the mosquitos was stinging smoke, but there was no chance to light a fire, since everybody had to work hard.
The mosquitos also invaded the dwellings; the only means of chasing them away was an open fire at the entrance door. The stinging smoke of burning fern leaves made them either fly away or gather near the window in search of an escape route; there, however, they suffocated in thousands.
Tar was a good insectifuge. The people would spread their faces, hads and necks with this black-coloured, strong-smelling liquid. The mosquito nets were partly left open, so that it was easier for the prisoners to breathe in the moist air of the forest and the strong, sweet scent of the plants.
The frequent useof tar on the skin did not remain without consequences: the described parts of the body soon became ulcerous and were covered with vatrious other skin diseases.
By the beginning of the autumn the mosquitos vanished. Instead, almost invisible for the human eye, swarms of mitches appeared. They would crawl through the tiniest gaps, make people suffer unbearable pains caused by their stitches, eat away their bodies, bite all over their faces – so that everybody would run about with swollen lips and eyes.
Gorevka was the only place, where one could see the cloudless sky. Here one could breathe again.
But we still had all this ahead of us.
Late in July, in Kansk, Zenta happened to meet her mother and sisters, who had just arrived by one of two trains with special resettlers from Latvia.
She learned that the Suki’s and the Schnejder’s families had suffered the same fate.
They asked for the permission to accommodate them in their lodgings, and,in fact, all of then went back to Gorevka.
The family, consisting of three adults and three children, once again started their family life.
At that time Ruta’s youngest sister was 8 years old, her elder son 3 and Little Uldis just one-and-a-half.
The day when Zenta went to work for the first time, nobody had to go and search for her, fearing that she might have strayed from the right pass on her way back home. Towards the evening she returned to the barracks with her last ounce of strength, completely exhausted and bitten all over by insects.
The children had stayed in the barracks all alone the whole day. Their faces shone with joy when their mother appeared on the threshold.
Little Uldis was particularly happy. He was not yet aware of the fact that the same would happen again tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and every other day – for many, many years more.
During the night the children pressed themselves closely to their mothers, always seized with panic, fearing that they might leave and they were to stay behing again in the yet unknown barracks, right in the middle of the wood, which produced so many weird sounds. And finally they dropped off.
Well-sheltered by their mothers, they even smiled in their sleep.
The children did not know that soon, even very soon, they would be afflicted by hunger, disease and death in their new home.
Yet. however, they were sleeping the sleep of the just.
When they awoke in the morning, the children noticed that there mother had already left. Yanis lookes sad, and Uldis started crying for his mother several times during the day, but she would not come home until late in the evening, just as she did yesterday.
The secon work day Zenta’s palms were covered with blood blisters. The muscles in her hands, legs and belly were terribly hurting. She was unable to bend her back, and she was racked with pain, when she had to get up from her wooden bed in the morning.
She became aware that this kind of work caused terrible pains to people, who had never done hard physical labor before. A few days later the problems, in fact, eased and soon disappeared completely. Her palms were now covered with a thick layer of yellow horny skin.
Days, weeks and months passed by with dull, hard labor.
Zenta began to notice some new expression in the eyes of her children. They watched their mother carefully, when she tried her best to share the frugal food ration in equal parts. Once a tiny bread crumb fell to the floor. Little Uldis picked it up and went over to his mother. And his little eyes were asking her: “Who do I giveit to?” – His circumspection, his economical thinking and his hope to get this little crumb caused a deep pain in his mother’s heart.
Zenta’s one and only wish, too, was to eat all the time. She tried hard to restrain herself by consoling herself with the fact that she had already got used to the previous small food rations.
The food supply became their main problem. Tehre was no possibility to buy food in Gorevka or to exchange something for food, the more since everybody was confronted with the same situation as they were.
Once, having just returned from work, she had packed up a few things deciding to go to Savodovka, in order to exchange the against food. She had to reach Savodovka by nightfall, exchange a couple of clothes against foodstuffs and return before daybreak. In other words: within this time she had to make 24 kms and then report for work in the forest as usual.
The way to Svodovka at nighttime beacame a habit.
An additional liter of milk or a few potatoes made the starvation existence of the family slightly more bearable. How many times did Zenta meet on her way just the same kind of poor devils, who, for the children’s sake, were prepared to give away their last rags to exchange them against something to eat.
Soon the loads on their backs became lighter and lighter. The barter deal began to ebb. Theprovisions of surplus foodstuffs was running out with the local inhabitants.
One morning, Zenta returned to Gorevka with empty hands.
At this time, the “prisoners” from Latvia were assigned to work for the different camp sectors and sub sectors of the Viatlag. here the people were “graded” in accordance with their skills and physical strength. Those who did not dispose of any particular qualification were assigned to work in lumberjack brigades. They had to fell trees, saw up the logs to the required size, drag the wood to defined places and pile it up. They were kept closely guarded.
The days passed by. The set rhythm of dull, hard labor reccurred every day.
The habitual run of the da did not even change during the winter. The work process was not interrupted, neither upon severest frost, when the faces started burning and the extremities became ice-cold, nor when there was a snowstorm.
At nighttime the exhausted, freezing prisoners were unable to have a rest and warm themselves. Their moist clothes would not dry and by daybreak had become stiff like a board.
The poor rations, consisting of a dish of watery soup and a piece of hard-dried bread, which had been “enriched” with various undefineable ingredients, was not enough to feed the hard-working individuals. They were persistently tortured by hunger.
Diseases broke out in the camp. The emaciated, entirely under-nourished human beings, who got physically ruined by hard labor, were not resistent to diseases at all. Death gave many of them relief from this hard winter burden.
At first the corpses were buried in single graves; later, when death toll considerably increased, they were simply thrown into mass graves. And there were many places of the kind.
As it was getting warmer, the graves were filled up with soil and levelled by tractors. This job was done by special funeral brigades, made up by weakened prisoners, who were not suited to work in the forest anymore. As a rule, these poor individuals would sooner or later fill the empty spaces in such mass graves themselves.
There are no records about these graves, no information about how many people found eternal peace in them. A few years later they had already been covered by grass and new sprouts.
The “prisoners who had acquired a certain handicraft skill, were in a comparatively better situation. They were assigned to work for different workshops. It is true that here they were working in permanent draught, but at least they did not have to stay under the open sky all day. Their clothes were not drenched by the rain and they always managed to find themselves some warm roofed space.
When the winter set in, the tree-felling season came to an end, and the prisoners were charged with different tasks. At the discretion of the camp authorities the people were made up into groups – some were assigned to provide firewood, others to work for the cooper’s shop or the pottery. They began to make preparations for the next season: the production of barrels for pine resin and small pots to gather it.
In the woods the snow lay about one meter high, in the valley basins even higher.
Zenta was assigned to a brigade providing firewood for the pottery. She had to search for dry wood in the forest, fell trees and saw off the resinous thorns on a chopping block.
There was a lot of dry wood in the environs of Gorevka, so that this part of the job was not too difficult to fulfill. But how to fell trees and use a saw? One had to acquire sufficient knowledge in this first.
It was particularly difficult to fell the trees in the correct way, so that they would fall into the given direction. If this was done wrongly, the tree would either get caught in the branches of other pinetrees, the lumberjacks thus being little successful in making it fall entirely down to the ground, or it simply got buried by the deep snow, so that it was impossible to get hold of the trunk afterwards in order to cut it into logs of four meters in length. There were days, when they had to work in the deepest snow, but nevertheless succeeded in providing firewood in a sufficient quantity. Any failure at work was considered as sabotage, and the “guilty” was abused by undeserved insults and swearwords, the sense of which is somewhat inconceivable. although masters of the Russian language use them quite often. As a punitive measure the bread norm was decreased automatically. Most of the women cried about the undeserved vituperations. But responsible persons did not show any pity or indulgence towards the women at all. Thus, one day after the other passed by. Hard labor and severe frost hardened the people to all feelings and consciousness. They were thinking of nothing else but eat. Not without good reason the smell of saw-dust and chips of wood made them think of either a fried cutlet or fresh-baked bread. These hallucinations caused spasms of the jaws and an unnaturally high flow of saliva.
In the forest the women suffered from terrible cold. In lack of warm shoes they were forced to put their feet right into the snowdrifts. And when they placed themselves into the snow till the waist-line, they would even feel quite warm.
With a heavy heart Zenta and the women like herself were permanently thinking of their children, which they had left at home all alone. They were very well aware of the fact that the beloved little ones were waiting for their mums, hoping that upon their mother’s return, they would be able to eat their fill.
Many of them did not even remember the taste of milk, potatoes and meat. The greatest delicacy was a piece of bread. How much had they liked to hold a large piece of it in their hands!
The children had a broken sleep. In zheir dreams they had visions of food – of warm, tasty meals. They were unable to imagine what kind of food it exactly was, but they clearly felt that it was something warm and delicious.
Having asked for the permission to go to the kolkhoz farm for food, Zenta set off early one morning. At that time she did not know that it was principally impossible to get to the village of Berezovka and back to the barracks within two days. Forty kilometers there, forty back. Apart from this, she had to make the round of all the kolkhoz farm buildings to find out, where they would be willing to exchange foodstuffs against clothes and other objects – this was not an easy project at all.
After she had finally exchanged the things she so badly needed herself against three buckets full of potatoes, a small earthen pot of milk and a few eggs, she set out for home. The way back seemed rather long to her.
Unfortunately, snow was falling during the night, which made her difficult situation even more critical. She had tocarry the whole load on her back. She made the last few kilometers in a state of half-consciousness. The only thing she was very well aware of was that, by all means, she had to avoid falling to the ground or sit down in the snow, since this would lead to death for sure. Icy cold does not spare a lonely individual this kind of fate.
Zenta returned to Gorevka one day late.
Nobody listened to her, nobody tried to find out the reasons for her beinglate. Instead, they accused her of truancy and sent her to Nizniy Ingash, where she had to spend five days in a punishment cell.
Yanis Schnejders continues to work for the camp hospital. He is surrounded by hungry, weakened fellow countrymen. As he only disposes of an inadequate medical knowledge, he is unable to cure them and prevent them from dying. What they need is normal food in a sufficient quantity, effective medicaments and vitamins.
With the courage of despair the diseased, bearing the mask of fate and death, try to exchange their last personal belongings against garlic or onions - with the aid of the guards. Scurvey is raging in the camp.
Yanis systematically becomes familiar with the medical histories of the dead, makes entries into his note book. At that time, he does not know that many centuries later, these notes will be of great historical value, also serving as the basis of numerous bills of indictment, which would help many people to learn details about the hard fate of their relatives and acquaintances.
In the second half of the winter 1941/1942 they gathered large quantities pine resin in barrels. To transport them to their final destination on the usual way turned out to be too far, and thus, the authorities responsible for the chemical and timber industries made the daring decision to lay a “zimnik” (track only passable in winter; translator’s note) right through the forest and across the frozen up brooks and swamps to Lebyashe, the railway junstion (branchline) of the Reshoty camps.
This project could be realized even at temperatures of –40 / -50° C.
All inhabitants of Gorevka were mobilized. The women were formed up into work brigades, for of them in each group. And then they were driven into the deep snowdrifts to where the planned “zimnik” was supposed to be.
Their legs and feet were wrapoped in rags, and on top they wore shoes made of birch bark – the only kind of working shoes available for the exiles at that time.
Zenta, who was younger than the other women, moved forward in the first row. Like bulldozers their bodies blazed a trail, actually a trench, through the light snow, crawled over timber wood scattered everywhere around. The poor women sank into the deep snowdrifts, but they moved on continuously, and the steam of their flushed bodies rose into the frosty air.
They made the thirty kilometers in two days and nights.
Nobody cared for their supply with food. The entirely exhausted, starving women fell to the ground, which was spread with cut down branches, pressed themselves close to eachother and fell asleep inspite of the biting frost.
The winter track from Gorevka to Lebyashe was finished. The began to transport the barrels, containing pine resin, which the armaments industry was in such an urgent need of, to the branch line by horsedrawn vehicles.
Soonafter, the winter was over in the depth of the taiga, as well. The sun began to warm hills and slopes, snow and icemelted away. And then, finally, the saving green of grass and plants came out.
Wild garlic, or bear’s garlic as botanists called it, saved many lives. When the first little shoots of this perennial, wildgrowing plant appeared, hope sprang up with the inhabitants of Gorevk, the hope to now having a chance of survival. The people pounced upon the tender, little green leaves, ripped them off their stems and even nibbled at the roots.
It is difficult to explain, how it happened, but late in 1942 the first letter from the Viatlag reached Gorevka. It caused a general howl of joy. The representatives of the weak sex felt somewhat cheered up and encouraged; they felt that they were women. They rummaged out toilet articles, which had fallen into oblivion during the past years. They begant to paint their lips and went to buy bread at the little kiosk with well-combed and even well-set hair. The one and only topic of conversation now was the memories of their husbands. Each of them tried to tell the others about theassets and positive characteristics of her husband, thus demonstrating how much she loved him.
A bustling exchange of letters followed the receipt of the first letter. The women tried to notify the prisoner of the Viatlag about their fates about where they had got to. People began to search for eachother. Even men, who they had never heard of before, sent messages to Gorevka, for they intended to find their family members by all means.
All incoming letters were read in common, except for those lines, which were meant personal and confidential. Everybody was happy about the happiness of the others.
Sometimes they received sorrowful letters, as well, when a woman was informed about her husband’s death, for example.
Zenta’s youngest son Uldis fell ill. The child wasted away before the eyes of its mother and died in June.
At that time, approximately, she received the first letter from Schnejders. He wrote about his unfading love towards her and asked about their sons. Her inexpressible joy about the letter is clouded by the death of her child. She is unable to decide, whether to inform him immediately or letter. She did not have the heart to spoil his joy and good mood by such a sad news. Although she had been unable to rescue her son, she somehow felt guilty of his death.
An endless flood of letters pours into Gorevka. They are all written in Russian. Some of them are written in an unknown hand. The women are worried. Did anything bad happen?
Very soon the secret unveiled. In one of the incoming letters parts of the text had been painted over by black drawing ink. It became evident that the mail had been checked by people who were not familiar with the Lett language. For that reason they only forwarded letters written in Russian.
Zenta finally decides to inform her husband about the death of their child in her next letter. She understands very well that it would not be honest to conceal the misfortune from a beloved person. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.
Schnejders enclosed a small piece of paper with one of his letters, a drawing made by a camp artist. The illustration I s committed by the words: “Dear sonny! I am sending you my best regards. On the picture you can see, how mum is feeding the chicken, while you are taking care of the rabbits! Kisses, your dad”.
At that time Schnejders could hardly believe that his son, little Janis (who had received the first name in his honour) was only able to imagine how chicken and rabbits look like, when he held this drawing in his hands.
And again there were letters full of love and worry. He writes that he does not live bad, that he occupies a separate room beside the hospital and that he disposes of a pass permitting him to take care of various kinds of business in the settlement.
Suddenly, in 1944, there were rumours that, after the victorious end of the war, all deported Letts were to be sent back to their home country. According to unconfirmed information such a decision had already been made, However, there was no way to realize it, because the Lett territory had not been completely liberated of the fascist troops yet.
The Letts took fresh courage, had new hopes and began to work even harder. They became more and more interested in what happened at the front. The latest news of the information office were regularly written on the notice-board.
In the evening, after work, by the weak light of the oven, they discussed about when the war might come to an end, imagined what might be, if … On the 9th of May 1945 the Great Patriotic War was finally won by the Soviet people.
The Letts in Gorevka were waiting for their ardent wish to come true. Weeks, months, years passed, but everything remained as it was. t became evident that all those rumours promising fineprospects for their return back home, had merely been invented. Maybe they had just been spread for reasons of an unscrupulous insult. And, by the way, none of themwas ever honoured with the “Medal for reliable work during the Great Patriotoc War 1941-1945”.
The year before, Zenta had been told that Schnejders, allegedly, had not preserved the decencies. And in one of his letters he himself reported about a certain Tania, who was working for the infirmary as a nurse and who he was on friendly terms with.
In 1946 he became the father of a girl born in the camp.
When he had served his sentence in 1951, Schnejders did not return to Zenta and Little Janis, but chose a place to live in internal exile in the Kokchetavsk region. There, in Rusaevka, he became acquainted to a woman physician. She was working for the local hospital. Her name was Julia Yakovlevna Lanskaia. They decided to live together. Soonafter, daughter Irina was born.
After their return to Latvia, Schnejders and Lanskaia worked for the same hospital. After Irina had got married, her family name was Irba.
As before, Zenta receives letters from her husband – they are full of love and usually end with the words: “Love, Janis”.
And these are the last words of another letter: “I would so much like to embrace and kiss you. Love, Janis”.
What is themeaning of such a behaviour? Dissembling, dissincerity and injury? Or love towards his legal wife, which is coming up again and again, love towards the mother of his children, who was sent into exile, although she is entirely innocent, and was forced to live there under worst conditions during the past 16 years? “Love, Janis”, ended all letters Zenta received in 1942 … and later, when he confessed to his wife that he had fallen in love with Tania in the camp, …. and when his first daughter was born, … and when he decided not to go back to his family after having served his sentence, but went away to the Kokchetavsk region, … and then, …. and then … . And he did so for the rest of his life.
She received the last letter of this kind three months before his death.
Zenta Schnejders still lives in Krasnoyarsk, where her sun received university education and later had a good job with one of the leading building societies. He moved to Latvia.
Zenta’s little room, in a communal flat (in which kitchenand toilet facilities are shared by a number of tenants; translator’s note), always looks clean and cosy. Inspite of her being well advanced in years, she is till used to working. She is doing important social work for the Lett section of the “Memorial” organization.
After the puiblication of Janis Schnejder’s memoirs in the newspaper “Literatura un Maksla”, which also included a list of all prisoners that were killed in the Viatlag, she was not willing to give any comments on it.
Evidently, she does not want to recollect those bad times she was compelled to go through.