THE VICTORY PAINTING
The main working obligations of the pupils were connected with the yard and the kitchen. We swept the yard, tidied the paths, in autumn we gathered up leaves in piles and burnt them, in winter we shoveled the snow and tidied the paths once more for walks. Under the leadership of Themis, we gathered piles of wood for the winter; the firewood was split by prisoners. At the end of winter, we sorted vegetables in the basements, mainly potatoes. In the summer, the older boys among us were taken to weed carrots, beetroots and turnips in the fields of the NKVD farms. We worked next to adult prisoners, but they weren’t allowed near us.
The most difficult duty was considered to be posing for the Stalin paintings of the artist Toad. She painted her children using us as models
