In 1940, Gustav Herling was arrested after he joined an underground Polish army that fell into Russian hands. In this book, he creates a portrait of how people - deprived of food, clothing, proper medical care, and forced to work at hard labour - can come together to form a community that offers hope in the face of hopelessness.
Reveals one of the greatest horrors of the 20th century: the system of Soviet camps that are responsible for the deaths of countless millions. This work presents history of the camp: from its origins under the tsars, to its colossal expansion under Stalin's reign of terror, its zenith in the late 1940s and eventual collapse in the era of glasnost.