To Russia –Without Any Love

March 11, 2013

Article 4: Russian Labor Camps

Before the end of World War II millions of ethnic Germans from Eastern European communities were shipped off to experience a kind of torture they never knew existed.  They traveled thousands of miles to labor camps deep in the heart of Russia simply because they were German and their lives changed overnight.  Nearly 70 years later this ethnic cleansing affects generations to this day. (Read more in the Jan. 30, Feb. 14 and Mar. 3 articles)

 The following recounts the horrifying events one person experienced:

“It was a cold October morning when the women from ages 16 to 35 of had to assemble in front of the school. There was already snow on the ground and we could only take a small bag.  We were loaded onto cattle cars with no
explanation of where we were going. We traveled four days with one stop a day
to relieve ourselves and grab a handful of snow to drink and wash with.

At the camp we made it to, my mom and I shared a bed in a long narrow room filled with bunk beds stacked three high.  I knew they were just built because the wood was still green and the moisture that continually surfaced would freeze.  We worked seven days a week, 12 to 15 hours per day.  We lived in horrible conditions and under horrific treatment.  I remember a man had been beaten so badly that he had maggots crawling in all his cuts.  We had to get rid of the maggots so they didn’t get on anyone else so we poured boiling water over him.  He died instantly. It was horrible.

I was in that camp for five years, losing my mother and many friends from my village.  I’ll never be able to tell you what it’s like. It’s so unimaginable, what the
Russian Partisans did to us. and they took such pleasure in it.”

This story is common among the survivors of the Russian labor
camps. Years of their lives disappeared along with the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people. Next week the story continues with stories of torture and
mass murder.

Ann Morrison has made it her mission to uncover history’s lost, but not forgotten,
stories via documentary films. Learn more at www.annsfilms.com.