Nadzeya Dzemidovich: I thought that we are passing villages, but these were camps

- I got into camp just like all other people, - Nadzeya utters these words just as if she is talking about something usual. In fact, back then it used to be a routine to get imprisoned for nothing…

“EuroBelarus” Information Service talked with a woman, who went through Stalin’s Gulag.

When the war started, together with the damages a hope that Belarus will become free and happy afterwards appeared. At least an eighth-form girl Nadzeya and her friends, who were members of the Belarusian Youth Union (Belarusian “Sayuz Belaruskaj Moladzi” - SBM), thought so.

But in 1944 SBM members started being arrested. At that time Nadzeya, who was living together with parents, was staying at her friend’s Nina Karach.

- They used to go to bed early, whereas I stayed up late.  And suddenly someone knocked at a door, asked if Nina Karach lived there. Her dad replied that she was, and Nina got arrested…

Not long after Nadzeya’s aunt came to tell her that Nadzeya was asked at her parents’ trice. It was dangerous for her to stay at home, so she went to Palesse to her relatives, where she was hiding at different houses up to 1948.

Nadzeya got back home to find out that her dad had been arrested for nonpayment of taxes, and her mother sent Nadzeya to her uncle in Petropavlovsk (Southern Kazakhstan) with the documents that belonged to Nadzeya’s younger sister. At first Nadzeya Dzemidovich helped her relatives about the house, and later she went for the accountant courses. But short time afterwards her uncle turned her out of the house – either because he was poor or because he worried about his own fate.

In panic, the girl went to the station, hoping to somehow spend the night under some roof in the beginning of the winter.

- In the morning I went outside the station, leaned against the road post, and started thinking: “What should I do?” A shortish thin woman asked me: “Aren’t you from Belarus by any chance?” I said: “Yes”.

The woman came to be a friend of Nadzeya’s mother and let Nadzeya live at hers. They were living modestly. The house stood near the train station. When trains with coal were going from Siberia, young Nadzeya hopped on and threw coal off the carriages for the women down to pick it up and have something to heat stoves.

Nadzeya finished the courses and was sent to work to the train station’s accounts department. But soon got kicked out: there was no place for the girl from the Western Belarus. Nadzeya was lucky to get a place at the bakery.

- Every month I had to hand over all documentation about advance payments. One day some young man came and told me to go with him. I said that I wouldn’t do that – I still had documentation to hand in. The main accountant said I could go. The person that came after me told me to get all my stuff with me…

Nadzeya Dzemidovich admitted: she didn’t notice that there were towers in the big building they entered – as she found out later, there were prisoners… When she entered the building, she saw a man, who once had kindly feelings for her. Nadzeya was surprised and asked what him what he was doing there by his given name. But the man corrected Nadzeya, asking her to show respect…

She was taken down the corridor to get behind bars. She was searched, all buttons, her comb, and other small things were confiscated, and only afterwards she entered the prison cell that had a desk, small table, a window, and a barrel to be used as a toilet. She was taken for investigation and asked to give up her friends from the Belarusian Youth Union, investigators hammered up needles under her fingernails. But Nadzeya stubbornly answered that she doesn’t know anything. Unconscious, she was taken out from investigations, only to be taken back when she would come to consciousness. They even used an electric chair in their “interrogation”.

After that she was deported to Baranovichi, Belarus, where the case against Nadzeya was already prepared. She was sent to court, where her mom waited for her.

- I thought I would be discharged – I hadn’t been anywhere, I was studying and working. I was taken behind bars; prosecutor and others accused me of betraying my homeland. My neighbor was taken to court as a witness, who said that he knew nothing.

Despite the absence of proof and reasons for accusation, Nadzeya Dzemidovich was charged with 25 years behind bars. The girl wasn’t even allowed to see her mother. Nadzeya was crying, and her mom calmed her from afar.

First Nadzeya came to a closed camp in Kazakhstan, where she met a lot of her allies, among whom was the leader of the Belarusian Youth Union Veranika Katkovich. Nadzeya recollects hard camp work…

After some time she tried to get a release, but was denied for the participation in a rebellion in 1954.

Nadzyea recollects how she and other prisoners were building a train road to Kolyma: she had to feel trees and make railroad embankment in 40 degrees of frost.

- Recently I saw a movie of how the road was build by member of the Komsomol (an organization for communist youth in the former Soviet Union – EuroBelarus), where women wore white kerchiefs; while we wore pea jackets and looked old, even though we were young.

Hard work and awful conditions affected the health of the girl and she got seriously ill. At that time Nadzeya only weighed 42 kilos. As it turned out, her serious illness was the way to release: in hospital she was told that she was going to get home. She got her stuff back, got money, food, a nurse and convoy to get home. Even now the woman recollects with astonishment that she was taken home is a regular train car, not the one for prisoners… On her way home she thought that she was passing villages, but these all were camps. When she came to Minsk, her sister was already waiting for her. It was 1956; Nadzeya Dzemidovich spent in camps more than 6 years.

- I am 88 now, but still remember some things. I am still strong. And very happy that I see youth in my house, - says Nadzeya, who is sincerely happy to see guests. She adds with regret, that she wanted to live for her Belarus, but God didn’t bless her to do so.

Nadzeya says that she can write a whole book about her life in camp. In fact, she had written three books of poems and a recollection book. A lot of famous Belarusans used to be in her house – poets Siarhei Grahouski, Ryhor Baradulin, Nil Gilevich, Zianon Pazniak. The woman of indomitable spirit and tormented heart doesn’t lose hope that Belarus will still be free and really independent.