Vasil Derďuk (1922)

We were like the living dead.

"They moved me on from Ukhta Vorkuta to Novosibirsk. In Novosibirsk we did mining. Four at a time - with just pick-axe and spade - and we shovelled the coal into a kind of depot from where it was carted out. I spent some three months there. I didn't know where or when I was." (Q: "That was already in winter?") "That was in winter. They sent us off to the mine shaft, and by the time we got there, some five or six of us had frozen up. I tell you, freezing to death is not an easy way to go. All of a sudden a man would fall down and die. From the exhaustion and everything. No blood left, just water."