Cannibal Island: the place where people went to the extreme to survive
Warning: One of the images in this article can be very shocking to sensitive people.
Hitler was not alone in committing atrocities for a false ideal of a "pure human race." Josef Stalin, secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, aimed to create a perfect Russian people, which led him to commit the unthinkable.
In the early 1930s, the Soviet Union was engaged in an accelerated industrialization program. To this end, rural areas were subjected to state demands and peasants were forced to make increasing contributions at a time when crops were mediocre. The great works done at the time required immense manpower and state resources. So Stalin's way of achieving his plans was to extract all he could from agricultural production, freeing up the capital needed for industrialization.
Little by little, food shortages began to take over the USSR, leading to a large exodus from the peasants. Between 1930 and 1931, more than 10 million people left their lands to escape the crisis. To Stalin these people were counterrevolutionary.
In this context, the annual meeting of leaders of the USSR took place. In his speech, Stalin presented the following idea: "Despite the triumph of socialism and the elimination of the exploiting classes, opponents do not disappear, they only take different forms."
After the meeting, Stalin delegated to Yagoda, the chief of police, a secret directive that ordered the end of the mass exodus of peasants. Patrols were soon sent to various train stations to intercept any peasant.
The USSR had many uninhabited areas, but with natural resources available. Observing this situation, Stalin decided that it was important to colonize these territories and to send these peasants to the cities.
By 1933, approximately 800, 000 people had been arrested. The order was to control the flow and clean the streets of elements considered "useless". To organize the situation, the government imposed an internal passport, which replaced all other documents. However, only the inhabitants of the cities received such a document. The passport-free population - mostly peasants - had up to 10 days to leave the cities. Those caught irregularly were sent to uninhabited areas.
To make matters worse, the government set targets for police officers, who had a minimum quota of people who should be sent to these unstructured places. More than 6, 000 people were gathered and, unsure of their fate, ended up on an island in Western Siberia. It was a difficult trip and, even during the crossing, 27 people died.
Among those deported to the island were many different people. The first group consisted of prisoners and convicts. Subsequently, homeless people, refugee peasants, undocumented or counterfeit people were sent. Even citizens who had forgotten their documents at home or tourists could be arrested.
An example is the case of Vladimir Novochilov from Moscow. He worked in a factory where he was elected three times as an exemplary worker and had a legally registered wife and son in the country. One night, while waiting for his wife to get ready to go to the movies, Vladimir went out to buy cigarettes. As he did not carry the documents, he was arrested and deported.
Rosa Rakamentiova, 12, did not speak Russian and was just passing through Moscow. Her mother left her alone at the station while she went shopping for bread. The girl was arrested by police and deported alone, accused of vagrancy.
People in this situation were not given a trial or allowed to even warn their families. The day they landed, Commander Tsepkov said, "Release the prisoners and let them graze."
On the island these people were sentenced to death as they had no access to basic survival supplies. The only thing offered to them was a flour, which they mixed with the river water for food. As an immediate consequence, many had dysentery. Only on the first night in their “new home, ” 295 more people died.
Some guards were assigned to monitor the "progress" of the survivors. If anyone tried to flee the island, he was soon cruelly shot. Even so, there were not a few instances when makeshift rafts were thrown overboard, hoping to escape the precarious conditions. Of those who could do that, however, most ended up drowned or frozen.
The island was dominated by various criminal groups, who stole what little they had from them, pursuing those with golden teeth or crowns. Officers went on to describe cases where dozens of corpses were found without the liver, heart, and lungs. But the first case of murder followed by an act of cannibalism was recorded on May 29 of that year.
Historian Nicolas Werth wrote an account of what he saw on the island in a book called “Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag”: “People were dying everywhere, killing each other. There was a guard named Kostia Venikov, who was courting a beautiful girl who had been sent there. He protected her and when he had to leave the island he asked one of his colleagues to take care of her. But no one could do much. One day they called the girl, tied her to a tree and cut down everything they could eat. ”
The guards did nothing because they were busy killing people trying to escape. In addition, there was no penalty for cannibalism. It was a real hunt, especially for young women.
When a new group arrived, with approximately 1, 500 people, the situation worsened. Commander Tsepkov returned to Nazino and wrote a report on what was happening. Only then were the prisoners transferred to five camps. During the transfer hundreds of people died.
Of the 6, 000 initially deported, the few survivors left were left to fend for themselves.
Only in 1988 did details about the "Nazino Affair" begin to leak out to the general public, due to the work of the Memorial Society, a Russian group fighting for historical and civil rights. The Soviets, unfortunately, destroyed most of the documents about Stalin's plan and the horrific events that occurred on Nazino Island.
There is currently a cross on the island in honor of the victims. On it is a banner that reads "To the innocent victims of years of unbelief."
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