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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 27 Apr 2022

Taken: 27 Apr 2022

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In the Camp Kitchen: prisoners lining up for soup -- drawing by Ivan Sykahnov, Temirtau, 1935-1937
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Even the very process of handling out soup, with or without vitamins, could be difficult in the cold of a far northern winter, particularly if it was being served at noon, at the work site. In 1939, a Kolyma doctor actually filed a formal complaint to the camp boss, pointing out that prisoners were being made to eat their food outdoors, and that it froze while it was being eaten. Overcrowding was a problem for food distribution too: one prisoner remembered that in the ‘lagpunkt’ adjacent to the Maldyak mine in Magadan, there was one serving window for more than 700 people. ~ Page 209

. . . Prisoners sought out jobs which gave them access to food -- cooking, dishwashing, work in storage warehouses -- in order to be able to steal. Evgeniya Ginzburg was once ‘saved’ by a job washing dishes in the men’s dining hall. Not only was she able to eat ‘real meat broth and excellent dumplings fried in sunflower-seed oil,’ but she also found that other prisoners stood in awe of her. Speaking to her, one man’s voice trembled, “from a mixture of acute envy and humble adoration of anyone who coupled such an exalted position in life -- ‘where the food is!” ~ Page 212

GULAG
2 years ago. Edited 2 years ago.

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