informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica

Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.

Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors


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23.7.04

Long Echo
Books of Memory


The perpetuation of the memory of the victims is one of the most important, but also one of the most difficult tasks of Memorial. It was around this very idea that Memorial formed in 1988. Quite a bit has been accomplished during the past decade, but much more remains to be done.
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Through the extermination and the persecution of millions of people, the Soviet government attempted to conceal its crimes. Who knows exactly how many victims of terror there were? Where were the executed buried? Where were the countless camps and what transpired behind the barbed wire? Even the relatives of the deceased do not know the truth: "10 years without the right to correspondence" � this was the only information given about the fate of the convict under Stalinism, the short formula of his life and death.
How can one find the truth in a world full of lies that obstruct our history? And it is it worth trying? It is, after all, easy to live in a nice and simple world of illusions. The reality of history does not lend comfort, does not lead to success and prosperity, but rather complicates everything. It creates problems of guilt and responsibility, opens old wounds, and awakes shame where only pride should exist.
Yet leaving behind the tragic truth means abandoning one�s own memory. A society without memory will obediently play into the hands of any demagogue; people in such a society are no better than nuts and bolts in the state machine. They are worthless slaves to an inhumane ideology that promises everyone happiness.
However horrible the past may have been, forgetting it would make the future even worse.
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The perpetuation of the memory of the victims is one of the most important, but also one of the most difficult tasks of Memorial. It was around this very idea that Memorial formed in 1988. Quite a bit has been accomplished during the past decade, but much more remains to be done.
From the very outset, three areas of work assumed top priority: the establishment of a list of the names of all victims and the publication of these names; the clarification of the places of burial of the deceased, and the establishment of memorial signs on these burial places.

museum
Handmade Items:
Kotschi (Austrian prisoner)
963. Case for spectacles
Karlag (Dolinka)
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Levina, Zinaida Semenovna 1904-1991
901. Napkin
Kolyma: camp
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Unidentified master
903. Embroidered inset for woman's undergarment
Temniki camp (Potma)
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Rogalskaya, Dora Moiseevna
924.The Virgin and Child, embroidered icon
Karlag (Dolinka)

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