STRICT REGIME "THEY CONDEMN YOU TO AN EMPTY BELLY"

Reproduced below is a brief sketch of the strict regime from My Testimony, E.P. Dutton and Co., New York, 1969, pp. 224−7.

"Well, and what about a prisoner's rights? There is his right to correspond (with limitations and censorship). His right to have visits from relatives. His right to buy up to five rubles' worth of food in the campshop, though only with money earned inside the camp. If he has nothing left after deductions have been made-too bad, he can make do without, even if his relatives are prepared to send money. Not on sale in the camp shop and forbidden because of the regime regulations are: sugar, butter, tinned meat and fish, bread. All you can buy is tinned vegetables or fruit (hardly anybody buys these because they are too dear, they take your whole five rubles), cheap tobaccos, toothbrushes, envelopes, notebooks, and you can buy camp clothing if you like—not that anybody does on five rubles a month.

"But these rights are no better than a dream, a mirage. Admin (the camp authorities) has the right to deprive a prisoner of all of them. This is done for violations, and who can say that he commits no violations-if Admin wants to find some? And so they take away your rights-to the shop for instance, for a month, two months, three. And then you have to get by on 'basic'-on camp rations that have been worked out on scientific principles to be just enough to keep you from dying off.

"The daily norm is 2,400 calories: 25 ozs. of bread, 3 ozs. of cod, 2 ozs. of meat (the sheepdog guarding the cons gets 1 lb.), 1 lb. of vegetables-potatoes and cabbage, about 1 oz. of meal or noodles, 4 oz. of fat and 1⁄2 oz of sugar. And that's all. It adds up to one and a half times less than a normal man needs on light work. You will say: what about the shop? But then they deprive you of the shop! Keeping strictly to all the rules and regulations they condemn you to an empty belly!

"But anyway, not even all of this finds its way into the prisoner's bowl. A cart, for instance, comes into the compound carrying meat for the whole camp, 300 lbs. for three thousand men. You look at this meat and you hardly know what to think: is it carrion, or something still worse? All blue, it seems to consist entirely of bone and gristle. Then it goes to be stewed and you're lucky if half an ounce finds its way into your mouth.

"You're eating cabbage and you can't make out to begin with what it is: some sort of black, slimy, stinking globs. How much out of the established quota gets thrown on the rubbish heap? And in spring and summer the cookhouse hands can't even bring themselves to throw out the bad potatoes any more, otherwise there would be nothing to put in the soup. And so they throw in the black and rotten ones. If you go near the cookhouse in summer the stench turns you over. Stinking cod, rotten cabbage. The bread is like we had in the war. In number seven we had a bakery in which we baked two kinds of bread, black for camp, white for outside. Sugar, though you would think was foolproof. It won't rot, you don't have to measure it. But then they give it to you damp so that it weighs more. And they give you ten days' ration at a time-5 ozs.-because if they give you your 1 oz. daily, it wouldn't be a question of having nothing to eat as of nothing to see.

"During six years in camp and jail I had bread with butter twice-when I received visits. I also ate two cucumbers-one in 1964 and another in 1966. Not once did I eat a tomato or an apple. All this was forbidden.

"And that is what strict regime looks like today. Strict regime, for the most part, is for political prisoners, because among criminals only the persistent offenders get put on strict regime, or those who commit a crime or a violation already in the camps, and even then not for their whole term-they do a stint on strict regime and then go back to normal regime again. For criminals and civil prisoners strict regime is the harshest form of punishment. But for us politicals it is the mildest, our imprisonment begins with this, because it is the minimum awarded by the courts. From strict regime political prisoners can go only to special regime or to the clink. And that is even worse."

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

Presently, more than 40 victims of show trials, staged to repress the growth of Jewish national feeling, are serving sentences in strict and special regime labor camps. Many of these unfortunate people are in need of medical care for serious ailments. All are in physically weak condition as a result of the extended interrogation and imprisonment between the time of their arrest and trial and as a result of the semi-starvation diet in the labor camps.

Brief sketches of several of these prisoners of conscience follow:

Fedorov, Yury Pavlovich

Twenty-seven years old, Russian. Convicted and sentenced when he was 17 years old for anti-Soviet views. After his prison sentence his health was poor. He was kept under surveillance by the KGB (secret police) which made him extremely nervous and fearful. Arrested with 11 others in connection with alleged “hi-jacking" attempt in Leningrad, charged in accordance with RSFSR Statutes 64-15 (treason-to flee abroad) and 93-15 (theft of government property). Sentenced to 15 years special regime, without confiscation of property, in absence of such. Address:

Mordovskaja ASSR, U.S.S.R.
St. Potma

Posiolok Yavas

Uchrezdenie K X 385/10

Relative: N. V. Buzyreva, wife, Moscow, U.S.S.R., Sergnisovicha 2, Kv. 167. Grillus, Simonas Aronovich

Twenty-six years old, Jewish. Engineer, worked on ship repairs in the Lithuanian harbor town of Klaiperdea. He was arrested in August, 1969, after a search of his apartment revealed the possession of books for studying Hebrew and records of Hebrew songs. Charged in accordance with RSFSR Statute 70 (anti-Soviet propaganda) and Statute 72 (anti-Soviet organization). Tried by a secret tribunal. Sentenced February 19, 1970, to five years strict regime.

Earlier this year Grillus was deprived of the right to receive parcels and was put into solitary confinement for 15 days for refusing to take off his kipa (skullcap) on Saturdays and other religious holidays. Address:

Mordovskaja ASSR, U.S.S.R.

St. Potma

Posiolok Lesnoy

Uchrezdenie X 385/19-1

Knokh, Leib Girshevich

Born in 1944 in Insar, Mordovskaja ASSR, Jewish. After the war moved to Varakiyany, Latvian SSR. After completing 7 years at school, entered the Railway Technical Institute in Daugavpils. Worked as an electrician. In 1965 was called up to the army but a few months later was declared unfit for military service because of a chronic dislocation of the shoulder. In 1969 he requested permission to leave for Israel but was refused. Married Mary Mendelevich in 1970. Repeatedly signed individual and group appeals to various Soviet and foreign organizations requesting help in leaving for Israel. Arrested with 11 others June 15, 1970, in connection with alleged "hi-jacking" attempt in Leningrad. Charged in accordance with RSFSR Statutes 64-15 (treason-to flee abroad), 93-15 (theft of government property) and Statutes 70 and 72 (antiSoviet acts). Sentenced on December 25, 1970, to 13 years strict regime without confiscation of property, in absence of such. Reduced on December 30, 1970, by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR to 10 years strict regime. Address:

Mordovskaja ASSR, U.S.S.R.

St. Potma

Posiolok Oziorny

Uchrezdenie K X 385/17

Relatives: P. B. Khnokh, brother, Daugavpils, Latvian SSR. U.S.S.R. Virshu 48, Kv 109; S. G. Khnokh, sister, Riga, Latvian SSR, U.S.S.R. Mariyanas 2, Kv. 1. Kuznetsov, Eduard Samuilovich

Twenty-nine years old, born of a Russian mother and a Jewish father, his internal passport states he is Russian but he considers himself to be a Jew. Studied at the philosophy faculty of Moscow University. Spent 7 years in prison on charge of anti-Soviet activities. Deprived of right to live in Moscow, Leningrad, and other large cities. Became aware of being a Jew while in prison and talked about his dream to live in a Jewish state. Worked as an EnglishRussian interpreter in the Riga psychiatric hospital. Married Sylva Zalmanson in 1970. Arrested with 11 others in connection with alleged “hi-jacking" attempt in Leningrad, charged in accordance with RSFSR Statutes 64-15 (treason-to flee abroad) and 93-15 (theft of government property) and Statute 70 and 72 (anti-Soviet activities). Sentenced to death, without confiscation of property, in the absence of such. Commuted on December 30, 1970, by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR to 12 years strict regime. Address:

Mordovskaja ASSR

St. Potma

Posiolok Yavas

Uchrezdenie K X 385/10