NIKOLAI’S ARREST

“On January 26, 1957, I was arrested. Six months later the Supreme Court of Ukraine announced the verdict. I was sentenced to death by firing squad, but because the death penalty had been abolished in the country, my sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison. Eight of us were sentenced to a total of 130 years in labor camps. We were sent to camps in Mordvinia, where there were about 500 Witnesses. We met secretly in small groups to study The Watchtower. After examining some of our confiscated magazines, one guard exclaimed: ‘If you continue to read them, you will be invincible!’ We always put in an honest day’s work and often did more than we were assigned to do. Still, the camp commander lamented: ‘The work you do here is not important to us. What we need is your loyalty and allegiance.’”