Nina’s father, Elli, like all Soviet prisoners endured harsh conditions in the gulag, which killed many and likely were the cause of Elli’s health problems after he was released. It is a common theme in the deportations history that families do not know if their loved ones died in the gulag as a result of illness or because they were executed.
In the image above, Elli’s last name, Tanase, is written in Cyrillic script, as well as his year of birth, 1901.
“We were rehabilitated somewhere around 1990, our parents and us, who were born in the detention places of our parents.” Says Nina, “We were rehabilitated, but they still thought of us as the enemies of the people even though we did nothing wrong… As our father used to say, ‘I have nothing to regret… Everything I’ve done was legal according to the law. I’ve never broken the law. I’ve never broken anything. I’ve hurt no one. But how I suffered… For an injustice”