In April 1958, I was transferred to labor camp 21, near Dnepropetrovsk, over 450 miles [700 km] from home, to serve the remainder of my sentence. There we got up at 6:00 a.m., and after breakfast we were loaded onto trucks and taken about 30 miles [50 km] to our workplace outside camp. We worked eight hours on a construction site, and then we were returned to camp for the night.

Our sleeping quarters were barracks that accommodated about a hundred inmates each. Food was poor, and living conditions Spartan; but at least I had the companionship of two fellow Witnesses in my barracks. Each of us made a conscious effort to encourage the other two. This is a further way that Jehovah provides strength to his servants in distress—through the companionship of fellow believers.—2 Corinthians 7:6.

In all, there were 12 Witnesses in the camp. Some of these had relatives on the outside who smuggled pages of The Watchtower to us hidden in food parcels. Most parcels were opened by the guards, who checked the contents before passing them on to us. But to avoid detection, pages of The Watchtower were wrapped in plastic and placed in tins of jam, which the guards did not bother to open. Once we received the articles, we copied them by hand and shared them among ourselves.

We also did our best to preach about God’s Kingdom, and Jehovah blessed our efforts. For instance, I got to know an inmate named Sergei, who had worked as an accountant at a state-owned enterprise in eastern Ukraine. When fraud was discovered at his place of work, he was held responsible and was sentenced to ten years in detention. Several Witnesses in prison studied with him, using whatever magazines were available. Sergei responded and finally told me: “When I am freed from camp, I want to be baptized as a Witness of Jehovah!” True to his word, Sergei was baptized shortly after his release, and he served Jehovah loyally until his death.

[Picture on page 22]

With fellow Witnesses in labor camp 21