The prison in Voronezh was only a way station. Several days after his trial ended, Johann was crammed into one of the so-called Stolobinskiwaggons and sent to a detention camp.
Stolobinskiwaggons After a few days he was ordered, along with several hundred other prisoners, to a gulag, a hard labor punishment camp, in Vorkuta.
Please, God. Let this place be anywhere but Siberia.
Please, God. Let this place be anywhere but Siberia.It turned out that Vorkuta was right at the border with Siberia, west of the Ural Mountains. But that didn’t mean it was a better place, because it was located several miles north of the Arctic Circle. When one of the Russian prisoners told him those details, Johann’s bones turned to jelly. He wished he’d die right there and then.
A rifle butt against the back o
