Irene Sobel - September 8, 1998
Arriving in Siberia
Where in Siberia did you wind up?
We wound up in a area called Komi. Komi is, is a state.
A 'K,' is it?
Uh, again, I would give you phonetically, K-o-m-i. They drove us up to the Archangielsk, which is a city in Siberia. And phonetically I would say A-r-c-h-a-n-g-i-e-l-s-k.
One more time.
A-r-c-h-a-n-g-i-e-l-s-k. Archangielsk, and it's a city in the--in Komi. Okay. From there, the train stopped there and that information I got from my sister who remem...who knows about it better than I. From there they drove us to a city called Syktyvkar, S-y-k-t-y-f-k-a-r. Syktyvkar. And I'm giving you phonetically because I have no idea how that would be spelled. We were put in a labor camp that had a cement fa...a, a brick factory, a very large brick factory. It was a area carved out in the forest, in a deep forest cut out quite a distance, I can't even tell you how far away from any city. A cleared area and some, and that factory and some residential building. The residential building uh, I remember we had a large room, fourteen families. And each family had a corner of the room. And in the hallway was a large communal stove, kind of fire burning stove where the families cooked.
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