Juan Carlos Thomas - Line Illuminator - Role 3
Pages 69-105
Passage:
" The kitchen was run by two men - a cook and a sanitation inspector. Every morning as he left the camp the cook drew an issue of grits from the main kitchen: about one-and-a-half ounces a head , probably. That made two pounds a squad , a little less than a pood for the whole column. "
( Page 69 , paragraph 6 )
For me , this sentence highlights something significant. Workers in a Gulag camp work up to 14 hours a day ! Someone that does a lot of work or exercise needs plenty of energy. Usually energy is is received from food. But how will one and a half ounces of grits give plenty of energy to the prisoners ? I know it is a bit hard for two men to give a healthy meal to more than 100,000 prisoner , but that's my point. I don't think it is fair for prisoners to work a lot and not be fed well. According to "choosemyplate.gov" a healthy meal includes five groups: grains , dairy , vegetables , fruits and proteins. Does a bowl of grits have all these five groups ? No. I know , prisoners are also fed oatmeal sometimes. But does oatmeal have all these five groups ? No. I am not saying prisoners should be fed a steak with wine , what I'm saying is that if the they want them to work they should be treated better.
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Passage:
"The other day the prisoners unloaded cement near the warehouse in high wind. What's more , they carried it up to ten yards on barrows. As a result the whole area around the warehouse is ankle-deep and the men are smothered in it. Just figure the waste !"
( Page 79 & 80 , paragraph 7 & 1 )
These piece of text from the book supports the idea that prisoner work hard during the day , in heavy weather. In this Soviet labor camps prisoners were asked to do many things. According to this website: http://gulaghistory.org/nps/ , prisoner in this labor camps were very important for the construction of many industries , including railways , roads and mining operations. Millions of prisoners suffered in this camps due to the harsh treatment and punishments. Many of these who suffered were not even criminals. I don't think this labor camps were fair to the prisoners. I don't think it is fair that the prisoners have to work when there's a high wind and their lives are at risk. After doing some research , I found out that the largest camps were held in the most extreme geographical and climatic regions of the country.
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ReplyDeleteHey Juan, I loved your post, I think you have beliefs that I agree with. Instead of bread and oatmeal, what do you think should be eaten to give an equal amount to the rigorous work that is done every day? As to your second belief, I definitely agree with how badly they were treated. I think there is a certain boundary where you can torture a person, and this is definitely past that boundary. How do you think they should be treated? I think they should work less and be fed more. Also they should get the appropriate equipment for the extreme weather. Do you think the labor camps were just and fair? I found a line I would have used for this section. It was on page 75 were Ivan swindles the cleaner/ cook and tries to get another serving of food. This also shows that the prisoners are so poorly fed they try to trick and swindle people into getting food.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, these prisoners work too much and have a short amount of food, no wonder many of them die. i think that these prisoners should be fed more so they can work more, because then their work can be more productive, and so it will be easier for the prisoners. Also you will need more calories, if you want to burn them and stay warm, because you need more food for more work, and by that you can work better in the hard weather.
ReplyDeleteJuan I really like your post. I think the same about your beliefs for the work you've done. I like the way you connected the harsh weather in Russia, to a normal person not just a prisoner. For the 'my plates' I agree that people had not gotten a lot to eat. They just had to starve sometimes. But many people think prisoners don't have the same rights because they are not just there. True there are some unfair judging making them go to jail, but most people had committed crimes mostly. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sent to jail because he 'mocked' Stalin, but most of them made a huge mistake before in their life which led them to 20 years in those camps. Nice work about the post!
ReplyDeleteI really learnt a lot about how to relate stories into real life just by the condition of the country up until now days.
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