No matter how often one reads of life in the Gulag - and this is
one of the best accounts - one is still chilled by the extent of
man's capacity for evil. This account by Bardach, now a surgeon at
the University of Iowa, is, however, more nuanced, though there is
no lack of brutality in this story of how he survived. A Polish Jew
who admired the Soviet Union and wanted to fight for social
justice, he was conscripted into the Red Army when it overran his
area of Poland after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact carved up the
country. He appeared before a drumhead court-martial for losing his
tank after the Germans attacked Russia in 1941 and was sentenced to
ten years in the camps. For several weeks he crossed the Soviet
Union in a closed cattle-truck, from which he escaped, and upon
recapture he was almost beaten to death, being saved only by an
officer who did not want the bureaucratic hassle of dealing with a
death certificate. Among his worst experiences were his time in the
mines, with the bitter cold, the pitiful rations, and the
relentless work; and the long trip by sea to the Kolyma Peninsula,
during which the male prisoners broke into the women's hold and
literally raped many of them to death. And yet through it all, he
says, it was his "fate to meet people who not only saved my life
but also showed me how to remain sensitive," people like Dr.
Piasetsky, who pretended to believe that he had been a medical
student, and let him stay as a hospital assistant, which saved him
from the gold mines. To survive the Gulag you needed strength and
luck, and Bardach had a good measure of both, but it is our good
fortune that in doing so he has contributed to our knowledge of the
human condition. (Kirkus Reviews)
From the book: 'The pit I was ordered to dig had the precise
dimensions of a casket. The NKVD officer carefully designed it. He
measured my size with a stick, made lines on the forest floor, and
told me to dig. He wanted to make sure I'd fit well inside'. In
1941 Janusz Bardach's death sentence was commuted to ten years'
hard labor and he was sent to Kolyma - the harshest, coldest, and
most deadly prison in Joseph Stalin's labor camp system - the
Siberia of Siberias. The only English-language memoir since the
fall of communism to chronicle the atrocities committed during the
Stalinist regime, Bardach's gripping testimony explores the darkest
corners of the human condition at the same time that it documents
the tyranny of Stalin's reign, equal only to that of Hitler. With
breathtaking immediacy, a riveting eye for detail, and a humanity
that permeates the events and landscapes he describes, Bardach
recounts the extraordinary story of this nearly inconceivable
world. The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a
young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border
of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly
shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to
death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality - from
a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of
the gulag existence - is a testament to human endurance under the
most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical
significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a
vital affirmation of what it means to be human.
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