TRW Born in Prison ENPRO

Genre: Thematic Short Film
Format: PAL/SECAM, DV-Cam, DV-AVI
Runtime: 4:17 min
Languages: RU (orig.), EN
Series: "Eye Witnesses"

Topic: When a wave of mass arrests began, children whose parents were imprisoned as “enemies of the people” were taken away to an orphanage when they could not find close relatives willing to take them in. For these children the government created special orphanages that were almost like prisons, with bad food and bad tutors and supervisors.

Plot: Children who steal food in order to survive, are sent to Children's labor camps: "Thank you comrade Stalin, for a happy childhood"; children are born in prison camps, and only few survived; the state took the children away from their parents in order to raise them according to the Soviet Ideal; three year old children are sent to Siberia, but die on the way: the state claims they were victims of an epidemic, but is that really true? The children's names were usually changed in order to make it more difficult to trace them later; Children play "prison camp", because they are acting out, what they are seeing around them... These and other horrifying stories are told by our witnesses in this short film.

The Series: Memories, if not captured on film, become more and more blurred over the years. That's why we took advantage of the occasion to interview those who really experienced the horrors of the Soviet regime either on their own skin or through experiences made by their relatives. About 50 hours of material of these "Children of the Gulag" are available in our archive for further development, and just a very small part is presented in this series. We deliberately abstained from any comment on what is said by the witnesses in order to let the spectator decide. These short films may be useful as support material in talk-shows or educational programs. Other themes may be developed in future.

Other short films of the series:

• A Glimpse of Happiness
• Citizens and Spies
• Faith in the Camp
• Feast Days
• Human Relations
• Life in the Camps
• Persecuted Church
• Soviet Childhood
• Soviet Life
• The Man and the System
• Unjust Justice