Jasch's Letter From Hell - Russian Gulag History

By: Mike Pagach | Posted: 22nd June 2010

Writing letters towards "West" throughout Stalin's regime is a criminal offense. Based on NKVD documents, sending or receiving a letter can result in arrest with out trial. For this offense, as well as other trumped up charged, millions are sentenced to Stalin's Gulag of above 2000 prison camps. The survival rate is 1 winter.

In their home village in southern Ukraine,Russian on a warm summer day in 1931, an total loved ones is arrested. Father Jasch Regehr, mom Maria (Bargen) Regehr and their six young children are declared "enemies from the State" and sent into northern Siberia. A area 5' X 5' in a three-story barrack becomes their new property. From this space they write letters to they write letters to their loved ones in Canada.

Jasch's Biography

So far, Jasch has been a survivor. When he's born in 1885, infant mortality rates are extremely high. He could be the only survivor of six kids. His mother dies ten years later. To be a young man, Jasch serves within the Medical Corp like a "conscientious objector" during World War One particular. Immediately after the war, at 26 years of age, he marries lovely Maria Goosen. Six young people fill their residence in Altonau, a little Mennonite village in southern Ukraine.

In 1929, the spouse and children attempts to escape to Canada. A handful of others had been productive, but the Regehr's attempt fails. Jasch is promptly arrested and held in a very neighborhood prison. Maria is allowed to visit him and bring him food, but he is weak and emaciated on the beatings, nightly interrogations and meager foods rations.Russian

He manages to survive his eight-month prison term. Escorted by guards in June 1931, Inside the prison barracks, typhus and malnutrition additional weaken his human body. He tries to function to earn additional bread rations, but he only grows weaker. Typhus is usually a menacing illness transmitted by fleas, lice and bed bugs. Days of discomfort, fever and muscle spasms confine him towards hard wooden platform inside the barrack. Yet Jasch performs whenever he's in a position. He also writes letters whilst he is strong sufficient. Desperation drives him. But his weakened entire body are not able to sustain him. Jasch Regehr dies inside of a prison camp named Tarabunka on October 8, 1933. Maria drags his wasted entire body through the barracks and buries him in the frozen primeval forest close to their barrack.

But although father Jasch has the strength, he pleads for his wife and kids in prison. The paper obtainable is really a Soviet postcard imprinted with a red broom sweeping away "enemies with the people".

Jasch's Letter (approximately 1931/32)

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Tags: muscle spasms, survival rate, writing letters, bed bugs