One of the most terrible legacies of our century is the
concentration camp. Countless men and women have passed through
camps in Nazi Germany, Communist China, and the Soviet bloc
countries. In Voices from the Gulag, Tzvetan Todorov singles out
the experience of one country where the concentration camps were
particularly brutal and emblematic of the horrors of
totalitarianism -- communist Bulgaria.
The voices we hear in this book are mostly from Lovech, a rock
quarry in Bulgaria that became the final destination for several
thousand men and women during its years of operation from 1959 to
1962. The inmates, though drawn from various social, professional,
and economic backgrounds, shared a common fate: they were torn from
their homes, by secret police, brutally beaten, charged with
fictitious crimes, and shipped to Lovech. Once there, they were
forced to endure backbreaking labor, inadequate clothing, shelter,
and food, systematic beatings, and institutionalized torture.
We also hear from guards, commandants, and bureaucrats whose
lives were bound together with the inmates in an absurd drama.
Regardless of their grade and duties, all agree that those
responsible for these "excesses" were above or below them, yet
never they themselves. Accountability is thereby diffused through
the many strata of the state apparatus, providing legal defenses
and "clear" consciences. Yet, as the concluding section of
interviews -- with the children and wives of the victims -- reminds
us, accountability is a moral and historical imperative.
The testimonies in Voices from the Gulag were written
specifically for this volume or have been published in the
Bulgarian press or on Bulgarian television.Todorov compiled them
for this book and has written an introductory essay -- a lucid and
troubling analysis of totalitarianism and the role that terror and
the concentration camp play in such a world. He reflects upon his
own experience living in Bulgaria during the years when Lovech was
in operation. It is through that experience that Todorov has sought
to understand the totalitarian horrors of our century.
Although Lovech and the other camps of Soviet Russia and Eastern
Europe have been closed down, concentration camps still exist in
the countries whose communist regimes remain in power -- Vietnam,
China, North Korea, and Cuba. The voices in this book remind us
that we are never completely safe from the threat of
totalitarianism, a threat that we all must face. As Todorov writes,
"I cannot say that these stories do not concern me."
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