NADEZHDA electronic file.compressed-ilovepdf-compressed

“But in those rooms into which the long conveyor of
Yezhov and Beria has delivered millions of innocent victims
whose blood on the walls is carefully whitewashed daily, your
portrait also hangs. People there concoct foul accusations. The
executioners and torturers of our time of inquisition, they also
wear medals with your portrait on their chests.”
Norilsk Норильск
NADEZHDA/HOPE НАДЕЖДА
the front was so severe that in Soviet Russia the NKVD began
to fear mass rebellions of all the dissatisfied and repressed
people. Of course, first and foremost, those who had been
repressed were feared the most: the former soldiers and intellectuals.
Behind the barbed wire of Norilsk was almost the
entire corps of the Latvian army of the time of Ulmanis (former
Latvian prime minister).
In May 1953, almost immediately after Stalin’s death,
“If the situation on the front were to become critical,
an uprising erupted at the Norilsk prison camp and developed
if Japan were to begin military operations in Russia, then it
into the biggest rebellion in the Gulag’s history. The prisoners
would make sense for the Latvians to organize a military re-
had been held in especially severe conditions: numbers were
bellion in Norilsk that would be joined by thousands of pris-
sewn into their clothes in the manner of Nazis, meetings were
oners in the surrounding Taymyr Peninsula. If such a rebel-
forbidden, letters to relatives were allowed only once a year, the
lion were successful, it would be joined by tens of thousands
windows of the barracks were covered in bars, workdays were
or even hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Germans,
14 hours. The camp contained political prisoners charged with
Tatars, Chechens and Ingush who had been sent to Siberia.
especially treacherous crimes and sentenced to terms up to
All of Siberia was filled with prisoners. The Latvians need-
25 years. These were predominantly people who had survived
ed to be eliminated, but how? There needed to be a reason.
the war, had been sent to the front and captured by the enemy,
That’s when the NKVD stepped in, an organization notori-
had participated in partisan movements or in armed anti-fascist
ous for its bloodlust from the moment of its inception. Arnis
or anti-Soviet resistance. The prison’s population was also rath-
and Karklinsh were chosen to rouse their fellow Latvians to
er international. The life experience of those imprisoned after
take up arms and escape from the camp. The duo was prom-
the war differed from that of those imprisoned during the late
ised that they could live if they informed the NKVD when the
1930s. As testified in Doronin’s personal records, the camp’s
escape plan was ready and would take place. Arnis began to
leadership long feared a revolt:
prepare his comrades for the escape, to take weapons from the
“In Norilsk, there is a camp that prisoners call the
guards, et cetera. A couple of weeks passed and the planned
’death camp.’ It’s called this because in 1942 officers of the
escape, doomed from the start, was ready to happen. The Lat-
former Latvian army, who had been in the camp since 1940,
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vians planned to disarm their guards and then attack security
were shot to death by executioners of the NKVD (secret po-
points elsewhere in the camp to free the prisoners, as well as
lice). Among us were two Latvian officers, Arnis and Kark-
take control of the post office, telegraph station and airstrip.
linsh, about whom there was a terrible rumor in connection
At nightfall, the time to act was confirmed. Everyone was
with this story. In late 1941 and early 1942, the situation on
ready, waiting for the signal. But the camp was surrounded