Album 5. Section 1
August 1942 – February 1943

Euphrosinia's escape ended with an arrest that sharply changed her life. Since August 25, 1942, prisons had become her «universities». Later on she got to know transportation under guard and prison camp, she had been tried twice before finding herself in Norilsk. 
In the Krasnoozersk prison she was interrogated and charged with espionage, from the railway station of Karasuk in Novosibirsk Area she was transported by train under guard to Barnaul. From a solitary cell of the court martial she was transferred to the NKVD inner prison.
Night interrogations started and she wasn't allowed to sleep in the daytime. That was the kind of torture called a "conveyor". Three interrogators in charge used different techniques of interrogation and brainwashing. After she refused to plea guilty of espionage Euphrosinia was transferred to Barnaul suburban prison. From there she was transported to the transit prison of Novosibirsk.
In the autumn of 1942, the police escort brought her to the motor-ship Voroshilov. While that prison transport was moving along the river Ob' she the children of women exiled from Azerbaijan dying from starvation or dysentery.
Euphrosinia spent the winter of 1942 in an unheated remand cell in the village of Molchanovo in Narym Area. The interrogators accused her of the "anti-Soviet propaganda" and "criticism of superiors' orders"... At the prosecutor she acquainted herself with the material of investigation based on Khokhrin's denouncements and refused to put her name under interrogators' fabrications. The local NKVD chief tried to dragoon her into putting her name under case papers but failed to intimidate Euphrosinia and his attempt to beaten her went wrong as she managed to protect herself.
Euphrosinia was formally charged under Criminal Code Article 58-10, Part 2 ("libelled the life of working people in the USSR") and Article 82, Part 2 ("escaped from the place of mandatory location"). The circuit session of judicial division of Narym District Court of Novosibirsk Area sentenced her to death. She was offered to write a petition for pardon; that was another attempt to force her to plead guilty. She refused to ask for mercy. On February 24, 1943, the death sentence was commuted to 10 years in correctional labour camps (ITL) and 5 years of civil incapacity.
  The long march under police escort to the city of Tomsk followed.



Leave your feedback in the guestbook

Reproduction of this site or any of its parts is possibly only with heirs' permission.
Conditions for reprint permission >>
©2003-2024. E. A. Kersnovskaya. Heirs (I. M. Chapkovsky).
Letter >>

Rambler's Top100 Яндекс.Метрика
Album 'How Much is a Person Worth?' by E. A. Kersnovskaya

Album 5
Section 1

from 1 to 12 in all 49   >>
  п»їtext ||| illustrations ||| album version ||| Samizdat ||| creativework ||| about the author ||| about the project ||| Guest Book -->

По вопросу покупки книги Е. Керсновской обратитесь по форме "Обратной связи"
русский