Tag #148643 - Interview #95166 (Semyon Vilenskiy)

After Beriya’s execution I was hoping that I and many other convicts would be released. I had less than a year to be kept in prison. At that time my case was under review in Moscow. Erenburg [31] solicited for my release. My civil colleague took my poems out of the zone and sent them to Erenburg, who read my poems, wrote a letter to the Prosecutor’s office and another letter to my father. I also managed to send my father a letter from the lime camp through my fellow inmate, who was released. This was the first time I managed to inform my family that I was still living. In my letter I wrote that I had been taken here to be killed and if my father didn’t help nobody else would. My father managed to talk with the GULAG chief. That day they sent a special representative to Kolyma… I don’t know what they investigated there, but 4 months later, in autumn 1954 I was released. I was released after my term of sentence expired. Hardly any political prisoners were released then. They only released criminal convicts. I was one of the first ones. I received a parcel from my father. He sent me his suit: I was as tall as him.