This time I was sent to work in the coal mines of Vorkuta, an infamous slave-labor camp at the north end of the Ural Mountains, above the Arctic Circle.

Escaping Death in Vorkuta

Vorkuta was a huge prison complex made up of 60 forced-labor camps. In our camp alone, there were over 6,000 laborers. The combination of subzero temperatures, inhuman living conditions, and underground coal mining wreaked havoc on many lives. Almost every day there were new dead that had to be disposed of. My health became very poor, so that I was unable to do hard physical work. I was assigned so-called lighter work, shoveling coal into waiting wagons.

Conditions were so bad in Vorkuta that the miners organized a strike, but it developed into a full-scale revolt. The miners even set up their own administration and organized a force of some 150 men to resist if troops should arrive. They wanted me and the nearly 30 other Witnesses to be part of their “army.” But we refused.

The revolt lasted two weeks until armed forces arrived and shot the rebels en masse. We were told that the rebels had planned to hang us right there in the workshop! Happily, they did not succeed in their plans. Considering the systematic efforts of the Soviets to break our faith, you may understand why we attributed our survival to our great God, Jehovah!

[Picture on page 14, 15]

Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Vorkuta slave-labor camp