Illustrious Artist Blogpost Juho Kim

Blogpost 4

pg 106- 133

I chose this picture because this was a part where the Russians made some mistakes. It says "They counted 462, it ought to be 463. It shows a part where someone goes missing, or they counted wrong. Later it says someone goes missing due to counting many times. It was the mistake of the gulag camps. I find it the only part where they made a mistake of losing someone in camp. They probably got out luckily. I find it interesting, of showing a big mistake of losing a prisoner from their own camp. It shows they aren't perfect, they are humans, too. In the concentration camp in Auschwitz, almost none got out of the camp, with millions of people. But here out of 463, one got out and probably went back. It's interesting to find out someone could survive escaping camp.

Connection Captain Role 3

1. "The men of 82nd, who'd been digging those holes half a day without a chance of getting warm, ... " This reminded of the book "Holes." These two book are alike because of the camp, and also digging holes. But Ivan has more pain and it has a more serious tone. The main character have things in common. They are both in camps without plenty of supplies to last long. This quote has mentioned people in the 82nd squat, has been digging holes for half a day, as in "Holes" it is more childish. The book "Holes"  has a young boy as the character digging holes all day, everyday, but Ivan, he has more hardship. With a lot of bad conditions, they continue.

(page 71, second paragraph, lines 4~6)

Russian prisoners digging holes

2. My second connection is when they handed out food to the prisoners. I thought of North Korea when I saw this. I didn't care about North Korea before, but South Korea and North Korea had to unite, so I thought of them first. Many poor people in North Korea wait for the food truck to come by and toss them some good food. Which is not a lot of food for everyone to eat. The people who get those are called "Kkotjebi." I wonder what they call these people in Russia. Any ways "Kkotjebi" means flower swallow who just eat once two days. But not a lot, its as if they have been in hunger for weeks but they get 2 bananas sometimes. So I thought of them first. In our lives we get almost all the food we want, but they couldn't in both. The providing food for poor people was mainly for people that could not provide enough food for themselves, and other people helped them or not. In the book it is one section going one by one to get food. Some of the others could barely get two dishes. This also happens in North Korea too. Some people get none and some get more. It's a race to get the most food or to starve and wait more. This is a tragedy in North Korea and no one can help them. In Africa people go there to help, but North Korea is full of communists. There is no one there to help except the government who don't help. They are left to die. In these camps some could die, but not all. Some could just die from the conditions but not from starvation. At least, they should be thankful for Stalin, he gives food even if they are poor.

Hand out food

Risk taking researcher

After World War 2, Russia had enormous losses against Germany. Their population decreased by 40 million. Out of them 8.7 million were killed in the battle. Stalin made concentration camps and German prisons. The concentration were then turned into Gulag camps after. In the gulag camps many people didn't get enough rights as normal people did. They could only send 1 or 2 letters to their families every year. It was as if they were on the opposite sides of Earth. But on Ust- Izhma, rules were different. They could write letters once a month.Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote this book after Stalin's death. It was a big hit except Stalin's army and his fellow friends were alive. So it was censored.

Red army

As it says in the story, Ivan got a right to write 2 letters to anyone. At this time it was as if jews were in their concentration camps. There were some Germans in their before they turned into gulag camps. At that time there was a war so many people in the concentration camp had to go. Some came back as soldiers, and some never came back. I had a friend who's grandparent went into the concentration camp and came back as a warrior of the Russian Army. He was probably lucky, as if some people went to war and was dissolved into the blizzards and trampled by blood smelling soldiers. They were mostly the victims of the war.

RED army2

Also many people cheated on someone who was not a squad leader to live. The person who got cheated was either executed if it was bad, or had to do more work, or they got tortured. So anyone in camp thought if they made some die they could be safe, but Stalin said you also did that too, before you came here. Sometimes Stalin would also kill the person who "cheated" themselves and the people who listened to that, too. So it was just repeating what the jews did to themselves. Just another tragedy which happened because people didn't get to remember the jews, or didn't know or, just didn't care and never thought it would happen.

gulag camps

In gulag camps there were bad furniture and lots of work to do in the harsh weather. It was as if it was impossible to live through it. Some people did die because of frostbites. Some were killed and some were tortured to death. With the bad conditions of Russia people had to still work like 12 hours non stop sometimes. If superman was there he wouldn't have made it back to his normal life. They got to sleep something about 4 to 5.5 hours. They were the real supermen!

GULAG "campers"

Line Illuminator - Juho

( page 5,  line 12 ~ 13)
"He couldn't see, but his ears told him everything going on in the barrack room and especially in the corner his squads occupied."
This shows he is still in bed trying to wake up, but could hear what was going on in the room because he could hear. This shows he is a soldier in his 'bunk' trying to get up. It was as if the author was trying to introduce the setting with a blind man. But with the word squad I could know it was a soldier asleep. I was confused because I thought he was writing himself as if he was in jail, but actually it was when he was a soldier, (I think). So I thought he must have been a prisoner in a war.

It would have been like this in the army. SOURCE
https://dianaoverbey.wordpress.com/category/world-war-i/

( page 15 , line  12~15 )
"They sat in the cold mess hall, most of them eating with their hats on, eating slowly, picking out putrid little fish from under leaves of boiled black cabbage and spitting the bones out on the table."
This gave me the imagery of the soldiers eating in a way most people don't eat now. Having to eat these nasty food because of the time they didn't have. It would have looked something like this ( the picture on the top) but now it is like this (the picture on the bottom). I chose this because it gave me two ideas again confusing me. It could be prison or the  army. So I chose these two lines.


 http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/exhibits/war/ww1/naval.html 

 source for the picture in the top

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/world-military-pictures/us-military-pictures-thread-93-1975.html
source for the picture on the bottom