Primo Levi
has written in depth and in great detail about the day-to-day existence and
struggle for survival of the slave labourer in the Nazi Lager system. Reading
If This is a Man I was reminded of my complete survey of the works of Alexander
Solzhenitsyn about 35 years ago, and especially of his One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich. But the Gulag in the USSR was substantially different from the
slave labour existence of Levi under the Nazi regime. By the early 1950s the
hundreds of forced labour camps across the Soviet Union held over a million
prisoners. Some were German prisoners of war, never released; others were
returned Soviet prisoners of war whom Stalin globally suspected of conspiracies
with the enemy; there were common criminals in the mix, as well as political
dissidents or people suspected in the minutest fashion of being contrary to a rigid
identification with the aims of the government, i.e., Stalin himself. The Gulag
served many purposes in the pre- and post-war USSR. It was an immense reservoir
of muscle and talent for the development of remote areas and natural resources in
the sprawling country. Its scientists and other relevant professionals were put
to work on goals potentially useful to the aims of population surveillance at
home as well as others related to the on-going rivalry with the United States.
The knowledge of the existence of the Gulag was the existential threat with which
all citizens parried in their daily lives: no one living in the USSR could be
unaware of it as all had personal associates who either were or had been
incarcerated in its unholy grasp. The power of Stalin, father and leader,
arbiter of life, death, and freedom, was magnified through his personal hold
over this far-reaching institution.
Horrific
though it was the Gulag did not have as one of its goals to work one or another
of its constituent populations to death through starvation and brutality. It
was brutal and the diet was very poor and people did die but these facts were
part of the nature of the camps, the personalities of some of the guards or
co-prisoners, and the general poverty of the post-war diets and lives of most
citizens. Struggling to recover from the devastation of the war, the regime
focussed its resources on the main aims of development and of competition with
its arch rivals in the West. Unlike the Nazi use of slave labourers, especially
of the Jews, death in the traces did not stem from policy.
While in Prague
we visited the tiny two-room plus basement Museum of the KGB, owned and
operated by a Russian from Uzbekistan whose grandfather was a KGB officer
during the war. His mother was also with the KGB, presumably until the
collapse of the USSR and its loss of control over its “colony” republics like
Uzbekistan. This gentleman has accumulated an impressive array of artefacts
related to the time of the USSR and its not-so-secret secret service, the KGB.
When we arrived at his door, Ivan (my name for the proprietor) was already
engaged with another couple, giving them his standard tour and talk. Somewhat
brusquely, he advised us to return in 45 minutes when he would be free.
Immediately behind us came two young women from Chicago, also wanting entrance.
Perhaps not wishing to discourage all of us and to lose his 300 Czech Crowns per
person entry fee (12 Euros, about $17 Canadian), he then invited us in and
brought us into the tour mid-way. Ivan proved to be smart, well informed and a
natural comedian. Another fairly large group of English-speaking tourists came
along soon after he began with us; Ivan managed to draw them into the mix and
to shepherd us all about the ever more crowded space of his museum with a sense
of humour and friendliness that everyone clearly enjoyed.
He had accumulated
some amazing things. In the small basement room, reached by a circular iron staircase
were mounted pictures of all of the directors of the KGB from the earliest day
of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the original secret service, the Cheka, to
recent days with a photo of Vladimir Putin prominently displayed. Overhead was
hung the silken folds of a parachute used by a secret agent dropped into enemy
territory. The entry room of the main floor showcased uniforms of male and
female KGB members for use in various terrains and weathers. Artefacts straight
out of a James Bond novel were demonstrated: a cigarette case that held a
double-barrelled gun; pens and other items that housed tiny cameras; and glasses
that permitted night sight. He had a variety of weapons that he not only
demonstrated but also passed among us to experience their weight and heft.
These included knives, hand guns, larger machine guns, and a series of weapons
that looked like small axes. These could be taken apart or put together in
several ways making them useful for movements that could immediately kill or
seriously wound an enemy. He performed these with the assurance of a ballet master.
This brief survey doesn’t do justice to the variety of items shown to us by our
host, however.
One exhibit
that particularly interested me was a large map of the USSR which highlighted
the camps of the Gulag. Ivan spoke about that institution, saying that it was
essentially shut down in the 1950s – likely after the death of Stalin. It
simply had become too expensive to maintain. Some of the inmates were paroled
and allowed to return to their former lives; others were sent into exile in
other parts of the Soviet Union, often to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan. It is still
in existence, though in a considerably truncated form, and is used for a
combination of criminal and political prisoners. The Nazi slave labour camps
came to an end only with the termination of the war. To the very last days the
determination to squeeze every ounce of productivity possible from labourers
working with starvation diets and insufficient protection from the inclement
weather and the brutality of their Kapos and SS guards, was unabated. Primo
Levi’s tale of his life under those conditions reveals in detail the nature of
the camps and the hatred and inhumanity at their core.
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