Victor Levenstein - Thirteen Nasty Little Snakes

 

There was a hard knock at the door in the middle of the night. I saw three men in the military uniform. One of them, the KGB major, handed me warrant for my arrest. It was Moscow, the Soviet Union, May of 1944 and I was 21 years old. 

 

They put me in a black passenger car. After a short ride, we arrived to a large iron gates at Lubyanka Street. The gates slid open. The car drove inside the prison yard and I heard the rattle of the gate closing behind me. The car drove just few yards from the street and I found myself in completely different world. Growing up in the Soviet Union, I knew that parallel to our world, there is another mysterious and dreadful world where people are disappearing from our light. And among them, my father. 

 

Both my parents were arrested seven years earlier. My mom came back after a year and a half in KGB jail. My father was sent far north behind the polar circle to the labor camp. Many years later, I learned that this camp had killed him by cold, hunger and overwork. So, sitting in the backseat of the car, I was thinking, well, it's my turn. 

 

They put me in a small tiny cell with no windows. They call it a box. And the box, it was a meter by meter and a half. I didn't know how long they kept me there. The old sense of time was lost. Hours, maybe days. I had a feeling that they buried me in this box, this grave, for the rest of my life. But then, a prison guard led me to a large room. Huge portrait of Soviet hang on the wall. And sitting under the portrait was a puny man in the KGB uniform with pale rat-like face. He announced to me, “You have been arrested as a participant in the anti-Soviet terrorist group.” 

 

“Terrorist?” I didn't understand what he's talking about. I was confused. “What does it mean terrorists?” I asked. He said, “It means that you nasty little snakes were planning to kill comrade Stalin--" A chill ran through my body. It was the Soviet Union. I knew that they can arrest me for any reason they wanted, but planning to kill Stalin was absurd and it was scary. It means big trouble, the death penalty. 

 

I understood that nasty little snakes he was referring to were my friends and myself. Several of my friends were arrested recently. Some of them were my buddies from elementary school. We grew up together. We were very close. It was company of really bright kids. There was no TV. We read a lot and discussed books. 

 

In spite of the censorship in the Soviet Union, books like Jack London, Hemingway, Steinbeck was published in translation, because they consider authors as critics of the capitalist reality. We read this book and saw very attractive picture of this reality of the Western world, freedom. Writers were free to criticize. People free to speak, to travel, to do whatever they want, to change their profession, to go to Spain, watch bullfights, not like in our country. 

 

The officer start asking question. “What kind of anti-Soviet conversation was taking place in your company? Who participated in the anti-Soviet conversation? Who expressed his anti-Soviet views in your present? Did you express your anti-Soviet view? Did you have anti-Soviet view?” There was nothing like this. And I denied everything. But questioning continued the whole night. 

 

In the morning, I was brought back to my box. Sleeping in the daytime in prison was strictly prohibited. The guard watched me through the peephole in the door and kept me awake. The next day, I was back to questioning. One interrogator, then two. They showed me testimonies of my friends who already confessed and implicated me. They turned on powerful, very bright lamp and directed at me. They cursed me, they humiliated me, they threatened me. 

 

The officer would put his finger in the back of my head, “Here our KGB bullet would enter your damn enemy skull. Here it will come out. We will grind you into the dust. We will raise you into the camp dust.” This was going on night over night and sleepless days in the box. My feet were swollen. My eyes were irritated. I was so exhausted from the sleeplessness that my head from time to time would dive forward and down, and the officer would hit me with the toes of his boot to keep me awake. 

 

Finally, I stopped thinking clearly. I couldn't concentrate. Everything was in a fog. And on the sixth sleepless night, it was it. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't care. I just wanted this torture to end. When my interrogator said, “Have you participated in this anti-Soviet conversation?” I said, “Yes, I did.” “Do you accept being a member of the anti-Soviet group?” And I said, “Yes, I do.” But interrogation didn't stop. Now, they wanted me to confess in planning to kill Stalin. And here, I don't know how but I found the strength to resist. Maybe in my subconscious the idea stuck that this confession will bring my death. 

 

They transferred me to regular prison cell. And interrogation continued for nine months, I never confessed in planning to kill Stalin. But then, one day, I was sentenced. It was not like an American court with big chamber with a judge and a jury. I was led to a small room without window. The KGB manager was sitting at the small desk. He handed me a piece of paper. It was my verdict, the resolution of the special board of the KGB. I was convicted as a member of anti-Soviet group and for anti-Soviet agitation, I was sentenced for labor camp for five years. As you can see, I survived these five years. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

But, but as soon as my term ended, I was sent to Siberia in exile for life. Then, four years later, friendly cosmic forces intervened in my life. Stalin croaked. He died. [audience cheers and applause]

 

And my exile ended. I came back to Moscow, completed my education, married Dora, the girl I fell in love with. Our son, Matvey, was born. Little by little, we built a decent life by Soviet Union standards. But as soon as door for immigration slightly opened, we applied for immigration and immigrated to the United States. I was 57 years old at the time. My wife was 54. Not the best time to start a new life in a new country. But we knew we have to go. I always remember years behind barbed wire and humiliation I suffered under this KGB interrogation. I knew we had to go. 

 

Many years later, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the KGB files became open for victims in Russia, I found finally the reason I was arrested. It happened to be that this company of independently thinking young people were under suspicion and under surveillance. So, the apartment of my friend was bugged. And using recording of our conversation, KGB fabricated this plot about Stalin's assassination. Why? To prove the importance of KGB, to prove that watchful eye of the KGB never sleeps, so dear comrade Stalin could sleep peacefully. 

 

13 young people were arrested. They made 7 confessed to this nonsense about killing Stalin. They didn't have any proof, but it doesn't matter. It didn't matter. They have confession and it was enough for sentencing. 3 young and healthy gifted guys didn't come back from the camps. The camps killed them. The camps took long years of life of others who survived. I am 94 now. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

And I am the only survivor of these boys who in faraway Moscow were reading Hemingway and Steinbeck, dreaming about freedom and paid a heavy price for daring to think. I live here in the west, and I came to realize that this life is the life we all dreamed about, life in freedom. Thank you.