Clary Estes
Those Who Remain
Hundreds of thousands of people from a corner of eastern Europe were forcibly deported as political exiles during two waves of Soviet repression in the 1940s. Many of them died during the journey or in exile. Others returned home with shattered lives. Only a few survive today.
“Those Who Remain” tells their stories. The Stalinist regime devised the deportation program to identify and exile political dissidents from what is now the Republic of Moldova. Those selected, often for reasons having nothing to do with politics, were killed or exiled with their families to remote regions of Kazakhstan and Siberia. Those who survived had to wait years to be liberated. If they managed to return home, they were systematically silenced and shamed by the Soviet and post-Soviet societies. Only recently, long after most of them died, have they been free to speak publicly about their ordeals.
“Those Who Remain” gives voice to these former deportees, and to their children and grandchildren. It bears witness to a profoundly important historical event that is little known by the rest of the world. These survivors have been waiting decades to tell their stories, which are shocking and harrowing, but also inspiring. See their faces. Listen to their voices. Some are still with us, those who remain.
![Pasha, an elderly woman living in rural Moldova, sits in the warm evening sunlight, as we talk about her life in the single, small room she inhabits everyday. She is frequently moved to tears as we discuss her exile to Kazahkstan, "[The night we were deported] Éthey took us to the police station in Floresti (a nearby town to Vadeni, PashaÕs home village, in the Northern region of Moldova). From there, they put us in a cattle car on a train. There was nothing inside. No toilet, no food, nothing, and thus we travelled for 2 months É some people died [during the journey], inside the train cars.Ó Ð Pasha Graur Across the former Soviet Union, millions of people were forcibly deported over the course of decades to the Eastern Soviet States of Kazakhstan and Siberia. This event is one of the longest and deadliest government campaigns in history. In Moldova, hundreds of thousands of people were deported over the course of two decades, from 1939 to the early 1950Õs. The wave of deportations targeted intellectuals, large landowners, dissidents and, at times, regular people who had done nothing to promote attack. Those who were deported had their land and homes taken from them and redistributed to the Soviet state and were deemed ÒEnemies of the PeopleÓ and were systematically shamed and silenced over the course of decades. Only recently has Moldova been willing to listen to the stories of deportees and try to understand the dark history of their country. PashaÕs memories, like many memories from deportees, regularly jump from the distant to the more recent as she tells me of the day that she requested her sister Ana Graur-Munteanu, along with her family, to take her in and let her be part of their family due to the lack of care she found with her in-laws in her old age, ÒMy daughter-in-law... Better not talk about her. Not even once did she take care for me and she never will. She once went to a neighbor to tell her that if I wasnÕt going to leave, she would pack my bags and kick me outÉ And so IÉ wrote a letter to Alex (Ana GraurÕs son) and Ludmilla Munteanu (Ana GraurÕs daughter-in-law, with whom Ana lives), to their children, to the relatives from Italy and to my sister and I wrote them, ÔPlease accept me into your family, please come and take me as soon as you can, for I have had enough, I can't take it any more! Other people have food to eat, but although I have money, I starve, for I can't go and buy what I need.Ó Pasha can no longer walk due to extreme leg pain and is confined to her one room in the small separate house she and Ana share. Pasha often thinks about her death saying, ÒI keep telling them to bury me next to our mother, for all my life I've been among strangers.Ó](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0001_Mary-Estes_Bunica-Mea_09-09-2015_3329-2.jpg?ssl=1 "0001_Mary-Estes_Bunica-Mea_09-09-2015_3329-2")
Pasha, an elderly woman living in rural Moldova, sits in the warm evening sunlight, as we talk about her life in the single, small room she inhabits everyday. She is frequently moved to tears as we discuss her exile to Kazahkstan, “[The night we were deported] Éthey took us to the police station in Floresti (a nearby town to Vadeni, PashaÕs home village, in the Northern region of Moldova). From there, they put us in a cattle car on a train. There was nothing inside. No toilet, no food, nothing, and thus we travelled for 2 months É some people died [during the journey], inside the train cars.Ó Ð Pasha Graur Across the former Soviet Union, millions of people were forcibly deported over the course of decades to the Eastern Soviet States of Kazakhstan and Siberia. This event is one of the longest and deadliest government campaigns in history. In Moldova, hundreds of thousands of people were deported over the course of two decades, from 1939 to the early 1950Õs. The wave of deportations targeted intellectuals, large landowners, dissidents and, at times, regular people who had done nothing to promote attack. Those who were deported had their land and homes taken from them and redistributed to the Soviet state and were deemed ÒEnemies of the PeopleÓ and were systematically shamed and silenced over the course of decades. Only recently has Moldova been willing to listen to the stories of deportees and try to understand the dark history of their country. PashaÕs memories, like many memories from deportees, regularly jump from the distant to the more recent as she tells me of the day that she requested her sister Ana Graur-Munteanu, along with her family, to take her in and let her be part of their family due to the lack of care she found with her in-laws in her old age, ÒMy daughter-in-law… Better not talk about her. Not even once did she take care for me and she never will. She once went to a neighbor to tell her that if I wasnÕt going to leave, she would pack my bags and kick me outÉ And so IÉ wrote a letter to Alex (Ana GraurÕs son) and Ludmilla Munteanu (Ana GraurÕs daughter-in-law, with whom Ana lives), to their children, to the relatives from Italy and to my sister and I wrote them, ÔPlease accept me into your family, please come and take me as soon as you can, for I have had enough, I can’t take it any more! Other people have food to eat, but although I have money, I starve, for I can’t go and buy what I need.Ó Pasha can no longer walk due to extreme leg pain and is confined to her one room in the small separate house she and Ana share. Pasha often thinks about her death saying, ÒI keep telling them to bury me next to our mother, for all my life I’ve been among strangers.Ó
Pasha keeps an old photo of her younger self with her two sons beside her. It typically acts as a bookmark in her old Cyrillic-written Orthodox bible. She loves talking about her children and misses them terribly. February 4th is her son, Vitali’s, birthday, two days before my own and as I visit her she is very sad. Her son died a few years earlier. ÒMy most precious Vitali died in 2004.Ó She says. She said she would try not to cry about her son on his birthday, but that it is difficult to think of the loved ones she has lost in her life, her brother, her younger sister, her mother and her son. She regularly kisses the old photograph as if trying to kiss the people within them.
![Ana, PashaÕs sister sits in the family kitchen as she prepares coltunasi, a traditional Moldovan dumpling, in the dead of frozen January. I see that she is staring quietly into nothing and I ask her what she is thinking about. She responds simply with, ÒMy sister, my [eldest] daughter in Italy, my brother, [Leonid] who died. I am remembering my family.Ó Ana is the pillar of strength of her home. Always busy, she rarely takes a moment to sit and rest. As I have gotten to know her better it becomes clear how she uses her work as a means to survive her past. The moment she stops working, the memory flood in and, at times, a quiet melancholy will cross her face. As we talk more and she laments her age, I joke that she is still young and active. We laugh together and she later says, ÒI donÕt know if I was ever young. My childhood was so sad, I donÕt think I was a child then.Ó](https://i1.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0003_Mary-Estes_Moldova-Deportees_12-02-2015_3710.jpg?ssl=1 "0003_Mary-Estes_Moldova-Deportees_12-02-2015_3710")
Ana, PashaÕs sister sits in the family kitchen as she prepares coltunasi, a traditional Moldovan dumpling, in the dead of frozen January. I see that she is staring quietly into nothing and I ask her what she is thinking about. She responds simply with, ÒMy sister, my [eldest] daughter in Italy, my brother, [Leonid] who died. I am remembering my family.Ó Ana is the pillar of strength of her home. Always busy, she rarely takes a moment to sit and rest. As I have gotten to know her better it becomes clear how she uses her work as a means to survive her past. The moment she stops working, the memory flood in and, at times, a quiet melancholy will cross her face. As we talk more and she laments her age, I joke that she is still young and active. We laugh together and she later says, ÒI donÕt know if I was ever young. My childhood was so sad, I donÕt think I was a child then.Ó
We try to recover a lost image of Ana and Pasha with their family and their father, Nichifor, who fled the Soviets, due to his brother being a local mayor in Moldova and their staunch opposition to the Bolsheviks. Ana and Pasha do not know the details of what happened to their father after they were deported except that he was captured in Romania and sent to a gulag near Odessa. He died in prison of unknown causes. This photo was taken before the family was deported and the original image has been lost. It is impressive to think about the availability of images for this story and how much easier it is to preserve events and memory today, ÒThe children nowadays are smarter, they remember everything. They are born with mobiles in their hands. We weren’t so lucky.Ó -Pasha Ana remembers the night their father fled, “One night, around midnight, our father, before fleeing to Romania, knocked on the window and gave us a box of sweets, saying to us, ‘Your father is going away alone, I donÕt know where, but you must listen to your mother because she is staying behind to raise you.'” They never saw him again.
![Before the family had been deported to Kazakhstan, Ana and Pasha’s mother, Maruşca was in hiding from the Soviets, working by night in the neighboring village of Caiinar-Vechi (pictured above), about 8 miles away from Vadeni. She would walk back and forth between the two villages in order to make money and care for her young daughters. “We would wash her feet [when she arrived home at night], but the water would become red, for she was walking barefoot, poor soul, through the woods and thorny bushes.” – Pasha Graur Maruşca had to go to extreme lengths at times to hide from the Soviet militias who were looking for her. Ana recalls the day her mother was forced to hid in a hot, newly used, oven to evade the authorities, "[The Soviet authorities] were watching for our mother but they couldn’t find her. One day she left the house, thinking that no one was watching, but when she came to the yard of Ilena Repesco (a neighbor), two Russians with weapons came up from behind her. Tanti Ilena didn’t know where to hide her, so she quickly hid her in the hot oven from which she had just taken out the bread, putting hemp bundles in front of it. The two Russians had seen that our mother had entered the gate but they did not notice where she went from there. They entered Aunt Ilena’s house and asked her if somehow a woman had entered the house. Because of fear, dear, kind Aunt Ilena suddenly had an idea to save Mother, and she said to the Bolsheviks, 'Yes, the woman you are looking for came through the garden and left out the back. If you go quickly you can catch her near the ravine.' The two Russians went out looking for my mother, and Aunt Ilena went quickly into the house and pushed aside the bundles from the front of the oven and pulled out my mother, who was more dead than alive. All day my mother stayed at Aunt Ilene’s house, but that night she returned home and told us what happened. I can never forget when old Petrea Sochirca (another neighbor), with a wooden leg, came and knocked on the door at midnight and told my mother, 'Marusca, run! They are coming after you!' My mother jumped the fence and hid in Petrea’s cornfields until morning, escaping this time."](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0005_5_Those-Who-Remain_Clary-EstesA.jpg?ssl=1 "0005_5_Those-Who-Remain_Clary-EstesA")
Before the family had been deported to Kazakhstan, Ana and Pasha’s mother, Maruşca was in hiding from the Soviets, working by night in the neighboring village of Caiinar-Vechi (pictured above), about 8 miles away from Vadeni. She would walk back and forth between the two villages in order to make money and care for her young daughters. “We would wash her feet [when she arrived home at night], but the water would become red, for she was walking barefoot, poor soul, through the woods and thorny bushes.” – Pasha Graur Maruşca had to go to extreme lengths at times to hide from the Soviet militias who were looking for her. Ana recalls the day her mother was forced to hid in a hot, newly used, oven to evade the authorities, “[The Soviet authorities] were watching for our mother but they couldn’t find her. One day she left the house, thinking that no one was watching, but when she came to the yard of Ilena Repesco (a neighbor), two Russians with weapons came up from behind her. Tanti Ilena didn’t know where to hide her, so she quickly hid her in the hot oven from which she had just taken out the bread, putting hemp bundles in front of it. The two Russians had seen that our mother had entered the gate but they did not notice where she went from there. They entered Aunt Ilena’s house and asked her if somehow a woman had entered the house. Because of fear, dear, kind Aunt Ilena suddenly had an idea to save Mother, and she said to the Bolsheviks, ‘Yes, the woman you are looking for came through the garden and left out the back. If you go quickly you can catch her near the ravine.’ The two Russians went out looking for my mother, and Aunt Ilena went quickly into the house and pushed aside the bundles from the front of the oven and pulled out my mother, who was more dead than alive. All day my mother stayed at Aunt Ilene’s house, but that night she returned home and told us what happened. I can never forget when old Petrea Sochirca (another neighbor), with a wooden leg, came and knocked on the door at midnight and told my mother, ‘Marusca, run! They are coming after you!’ My mother jumped the fence and hid in Petrea’s cornfields until morning, escaping this time.”
Ana shows me her right hand. It is important to note that during (and as part of) the deportations, the Soviet Union manufactured devastating famines across Moldova and other Soviet republics, as a way to feed the Soviet machine. The famines killed thousands of people in Moldova, squelched resistance and were commonly used as propaganda to support the deportations. As a child, Ana severely injured her hand when she fell on one of the few bowls of food her family could make during the manufactured famine of 1946, which struck her village before she, her sisters and her mother were deported to Kazakhstan. Ana recalls, “The bowl broke and I fell with my little hand right into the shards. My finger was almost cut off forever. Blood flowed badly and I, with my left hand, gathered the nettle (the food she was carrying) from the floor and we ate it, dust and all. My mother ran, and soaked a rag at the stove, hugged me and bound my little hand and finger, which was ready to fall off. I fell asleep for a little while in her arms, but the pain never left me that night nor for a few days and nights after.”
![When the Graur women returned, they had to work hard to get by and survive the winters, occasionally being oppressed by their own neighbors. Ana recalls, “Winter approached and we didn’t have any boots. My mother thought to go to Nicolea Lis, the one who bought our sheep [when they were taken from us when we were deported], to ask him for some wool to make our shoes with. But she got herself into a fine mess! She entered the yard, she bid them good-day, and Mrs. Grafira asked her the reason for her visit. My mother kindly asked her for some wool to make slippers for the girls, but Grafira snapped at my mother, telling her that she should keep out of her yard, because she payed for those sheep. And then, [as she cursed our mother], she let their dog loose on her. By the time mother walked out the gate, the dog had bitten her leg. So with a heart full of sorrow and a bleeding leg, she went to Alexei Conovali’s home (a neighbor at the time) and his wife, Mrs. Olga, put a cold Romanian coin on her wound and bound her leg with a scarf. My poor mother came home limping. It was very painful for us. However, we swallowed this bitter pill and moved forward.”](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0012_12__Moldova-Deportees.jpg?ssl=1 "0012_12__Moldova-Deportees")
When the Graur women returned, they had to work hard to get by and survive the winters, occasionally being oppressed by their own neighbors. Ana recalls, “Winter approached and we didn’t have any boots. My mother thought to go to Nicolea Lis, the one who bought our sheep [when they were taken from us when we were deported], to ask him for some wool to make our shoes with. But she got herself into a fine mess! She entered the yard, she bid them good-day, and Mrs. Grafira asked her the reason for her visit. My mother kindly asked her for some wool to make slippers for the girls, but Grafira snapped at my mother, telling her that she should keep out of her yard, because she payed for those sheep. And then, [as she cursed our mother], she let their dog loose on her. By the time mother walked out the gate, the dog had bitten her leg. So with a heart full of sorrow and a bleeding leg, she went to Alexei Conovali’s home (a neighbor at the time) and his wife, Mrs. Olga, put a cold Romanian coin on her wound and bound her leg with a scarf. My poor mother came home limping. It was very painful for us. However, we swallowed this bitter pill and moved forward.”
Ana and I practiced spelling in Cyrillic on the foggy kitchen window. When she and her sisters were deported to Kazakhstan they had to study in Russian. It is a common theme in deportees’ stories that they learned and studied in Russian once displaced; many deportees have voiced feeling like their language was taken from them. Some older Moldovans speak Romanian while writing the language in the Cyrillic script, while other deportees lost their native tongue all together and have a hard time speaking in Romanian at all, instead defaulting to Russian. While Ana’s Romanian is quite developed, Pasha’s struggles slightly more as a result of her living a great deal of her adult life with her husband, Vanea, in Ukraine. Ana remembers, “I would sit with my head beneath my desk. I couldn’t understand a word. I was crying, crying and crying. I couldn’t speak a word in Russian. Mother would soothe us in the evening, when she came home. She would say, ‘Stop crying now. You will learn. Today a word, tomorrow – two.’ We found ourselves taken so far away from our Moldova to such a big country, and we couldn’t understand a word of Russian. Mother translated us as much as she could. But that’s how it was. What could we do?”
Over the Orthodox Christmas holiday, or ‘Old Christmas’ as it is sometimes called, the local priest will travel to each home in the village and bless the residents. Pasha cries and kisses the priest’s hand as he gives her a blessing. She gets very emotional when he visits, not only because she can realize her religious needs (which she cannot do socially due to her disability), but also because he is a relative of the family and she is happy to see him. Pasha is frequently moved to tears when she finally see’s someone who has been away for a long time. When remembering Kazakhstan, Pasha remembers how both her culture and religion were taken away, “… It was very hard and you are among strangers, you don’t know when to celebrate Easter or Christmas, you long for your home, your sweet country, your most beloved country.”
Easter is the largest holiday in Moldova and is a time to celebrate the coming warm weather, as well as relax with family. The midnight and early morning church service is very popular in the village and every household comes to worship and have their Easter feast blessed by the local priest. However, easter can be especially hard on Pasha and her desire to go to church is more acute. In many ways it feels as if Pasha has been dealt a double blow; first she was denied the church as part of Soviet policy, and now she is denied the church due to her illness. I take a video recording of the church service on Easter day and show it to Pasha. She follows along with the service and at the end she tearfully thanks me, “I listen to church service over the radio, but it is not the same. Being able to see the service is so wonderful for me.”
Ana’s grand daughter, Natasia, poses for a picture years after her grandmother returned to Moldova from Kazakhstan. She now lives in Italy with her mother, Ana’s daughter Lidia, and father. Ana came back to Moldova with her mother 5 years after they were deported, after the death of Stalin in 1956. Many deportees were allowed to return home after Stalin’s death and the rate of frequency of return differs from person to person, ranging from the immediate return to those who waited decades (wither by choice of by circumstance), to return home. The Graur women slowly built back up their life in their home village of Vadeni. It was surprising, to an extent, that they were allowed to return back home, as many deportees were barred from returning to their ancestral villages and had to instead survive elsewhere, regularly depending on the kindness of family members. Ana currently lives with her son Alex and his family and says that she wants to live to see her family safe and settled. During Alex’s 48th birthday on August 23rd, she told me, “In my dreams my husband (Vladimir, who died years earlier) comes to me and says, ‘Join me, Ana.’ but I say no, I am happy here and I want to be with my family.”
When Pasha’s son, Leonid, came to visit from Ukraine, she lamented that he spent so little time with her. Leonid, in his youth, was a professional soccer player, a fact that Pasha is proud of despite the fact that it required him to be away often. One day during Leonid’s visit, wearing a red dress sent to her from family in Italy, she said, “I dressed nicely, yet Leonid doesn’t come.” Leonid instead decided to spend much of his trip visiting his cousin, Alex, Ana’s son. Both Pasha’s sister, Ana, and her daughter-in-law, Ludmilla lament that same fact. “As you can see she has no one,” they tell me one evening, “She has no one to come visit her and she is very lonely.” Ana is even moved to tears that the family cannot do more for her. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and as a result life can be extremely hard. Ludmilla has to travel to Italy every three months to work to pay off the wedding of her eldest child, Ana’s grandchild, Ioana, and the family worries about Pasha’s death. “That would be a tragedy if she died,” she says, “We cannot pay for the funeral and my son, Pavel, will be getting married as well.” Ana cries to me, “Please do something for Pasha, please!” “I will try.” I say, but I little know what to do. A common theme to the deportee’s story is that the story did not end after Stalin’s death. The larger story is about the social and political repression felt by deportees after they returned to Moldova, as well as the long process of building their lives back up after having everything taken away. The resilience of the deportees who experienced this history shows that through great pain, life does go on.
Nina Postica, a former deportee to Siberia, and her family go to visit her brother and mother in her parents’ home village of Nemteni on the border with Romania for Pastele Blajinilor, an orthodox portion of the Easter celebration where families go to the gravesites of loved ones with food wine and offerings, blessing the gravesites with their memories. Nina’s family was deported to Tyumen, Russia, in Western Siberia, in 1941 during the first wave of deportations in Moldova. The first wave of deportations was aimed at intellectuals and political disidents and ranged from 1939 until 1941. The second wave was directed at economically higher casts of people and took place in the late 1940’s. Nina’s father was sent to the gulag from which he was later released and joined his family in Tyumen after Stalin’s death. Nina was born in Tyumen shortly after her father’s return. When remembering what happened to her and her family, Nina says, “May this never repeat… May future generations never go through such unjust events… For this for was an injustice… an injustice… May it never happen again…” “So few of us remain… From those who were taken away… Who were so wrongfully taken away. They should give them justice!” Says Nina. Nina lives with her husband, Ion, who was also deported with his family at the age of 3.
![Ion and Nina were married on the 21st of May 1977, after only 4 months of courtship. Their godparents, Tamara and Gerasim (who was also a deportee, part of the Constantinide family), stand beside them. Gerasim lives only a few doors down from Ion and Nina in Bubuechi, Moldova near the captial, Chisinau, and speaks mostly Russian, still having trouble coming back to the Moldovan language. He is ethnically Greek. “I got married to [Nina], a deportee as myself, in that, her parents were deportees, and we live peacefully now.” Says Nina’s husband, Ion, “We have two boys (Alex and Pavel), they have their own children, our grandchildren, and we are retired. Now, we stay at home and rest!… I am happy with my life, except for the fact that we were oppressed. I lost a brother [in Siberia] and our parents suffered a lot. Imagine how it was to move with 5 children all the way to Siberia, where it is -40/-45 Celsius. How can you deal with such a situation? We managed somehow. I thank our parents,” While Nina’s family was deported to the more western of the Siberian region, Ion’s family was deported to one of the eastern most parts of Siberia, a harsh, wild and frigid landscape. There are many stories of deportees freezing to death in the western Siberian region due to lack of proper clothing coupled with the need to travel long distances to go to school, work or move their families to other work camps.](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0019_Mary-Estes_Deportees_038.jpg?ssl=1 "0019_Mary-Estes_Deportees_038")
Ion and Nina were married on the 21st of May 1977, after only 4 months of courtship. Their godparents, Tamara and Gerasim (who was also a deportee, part of the Constantinide family), stand beside them. Gerasim lives only a few doors down from Ion and Nina in Bubuechi, Moldova near the captial, Chisinau, and speaks mostly Russian, still having trouble coming back to the Moldovan language. He is ethnically Greek. “I got married to [Nina], a deportee as myself, in that, her parents were deportees, and we live peacefully now.” Says Nina’s husband, Ion, “We have two boys (Alex and Pavel), they have their own children, our grandchildren, and we are retired. Now, we stay at home and rest!… I am happy with my life, except for the fact that we were oppressed. I lost a brother [in Siberia] and our parents suffered a lot. Imagine how it was to move with 5 children all the way to Siberia, where it is -40/-45 Celsius. How can you deal with such a situation? We managed somehow. I thank our parents,” While Nina’s family was deported to the more western of the Siberian region, Ion’s family was deported to one of the eastern most parts of Siberia, a harsh, wild and frigid landscape. There are many stories of deportees freezing to death in the western Siberian region due to lack of proper clothing coupled with the need to travel long distances to go to school, work or move their families to other work camps.
![Ion and Nina regularly spend the afternoons with their grandson Danu. Both Ion and Nina make a point to educate their grandchildren about the history of their deportations from Moldova. Nina explains, “My mother (Olga), along with her two daughters were deported to the region of Chuman, district of Surgut [before I was born]. My father (Elli) was sent to the concentration camp and sentenced to death on the charge that he was making anti-Soviet propaganda… [My] [f]ather was a police commissioner. He graduated from the Police Academy of Cernăuți (located in Ukraine) and was then made a police commissioner and he did his duty... His duty was to protect people - to bring them justice, but they incriminated him for doing anti-Soviet propaganda, which was not true. So my Father spent 10 years in a concentration camp in the region of Sverdlovsk, In Russia, in the city of Ivdel, but he evaded [his original] death sentence. He evaded it because he could bake bread…” Nina’s father ingratiated himself to his Soviet wardens by working in the kitchen and baking bread for the other prisoners, as a result his death sentence was reduced to a 5-year sentence and he was later able to reunite with his family in Tyumen, Russia. After he was freed, he returned to Moldova to look for them, eventually finding out where they were through relatives. Nina was born shortly after he made his way to Russia. Some family members, and many men in families, choose to self deport as a way to be close to their families who where sent away.](https://i1.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0020_Mary-Estes_Moldova-Deportees_04-13-2016_0182.jpg?ssl=1 "0020_Mary-Estes_Moldova-Deportees_04-13-2016_0182")
Ion and Nina regularly spend the afternoons with their grandson Danu. Both Ion and Nina make a point to educate their grandchildren about the history of their deportations from Moldova. Nina explains, “My mother (Olga), along with her two daughters were deported to the region of Chuman, district of Surgut [before I was born]. My father (Elli) was sent to the concentration camp and sentenced to death on the charge that he was making anti-Soviet propaganda… [My] [f]ather was a police commissioner. He graduated from the Police Academy of Cernăuți (located in Ukraine) and was then made a police commissioner and he did his duty… His duty was to protect people – to bring them justice, but they incriminated him for doing anti-Soviet propaganda, which was not true. So my Father spent 10 years in a concentration camp in the region of Sverdlovsk, In Russia, in the city of Ivdel, but he evaded [his original] death sentence. He evaded it because he could bake bread…” Nina’s father ingratiated himself to his Soviet wardens by working in the kitchen and baking bread for the other prisoners, as a result his death sentence was reduced to a 5-year sentence and he was later able to reunite with his family in Tyumen, Russia. After he was freed, he returned to Moldova to look for them, eventually finding out where they were through relatives. Nina was born shortly after he made his way to Russia. Some family members, and many men in families, choose to self deport as a way to be close to their families who where sent away.
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”
![An archive photo of Nina's father, Elli, shows that he was part of the Romanian army, which probably attributed to his later arrest. I asked about his history before he had been arrested. Nina said he didn't talk about what happened, she only knows that he was a police commissioner charged with anti-Soviet propaganda – a charge the family believes to be untrue. It was dangerous for the family to talk about his life before the deportations, both in the home and in society. Nina doesn't know what was written on the back of the photograph. Nina’s mother also kept silent about the family’s deportation. Nina recalls, “… Until 1985, no one in the family would talk about [our deportation]. We wouldn't talk about it, not even mother would mention the deportations, or about living in Siberia. The story was over.”](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0023_Together-Mary-Estes_Deportees_015.jpg?ssl=1 "0023_Together-Mary-Estes_Deportees_015")
An archive photo of Nina’s father, Elli, shows that he was part of the Romanian army, which probably attributed to his later arrest. I asked about his history before he had been arrested. Nina said he didn’t talk about what happened, she only knows that he was a police commissioner charged with anti-Soviet propaganda – a charge the family believes to be untrue. It was dangerous for the family to talk about his life before the deportations, both in the home and in society. Nina doesn’t know what was written on the back of the photograph. Nina’s mother also kept silent about the family’s deportation. Nina recalls, “… Until 1985, no one in the family would talk about [our deportation]. We wouldn’t talk about it, not even mother would mention the deportations, or about living in Siberia. The story was over.”
Nina’s mother, Olga, holds Nina’s son Pavel years after they have returned to Moldova. The hardest memories for Nina are not, in fact, her memories from Russia, but her memories of her family’s return to Moldova after her father’s death, “What one can remember is what hurts one the most… when mother set us around the table, 7 souls (Nina’s mother, Olga returned to Moldova with her 7 children), who had no table, no place to sit around and eat and not much to eat anyway. She would cry, and that was the most painful for me. It’s important that people never forget this and that justice will prevail.” Nina remembers how her mother would cry at her inability to provide for her children and as her children saw her cry, they would cry for their mother as well.
Ion and Nina have hung a family tree made by their grandchildren on their refrigerator, which is held up, in part, by handmade gifts. Many deportees talk about how, despite the hardship they faced in the past, they are happy with their lives now, in part because they are so close to their families. Ion and Nina’s home is filled with their children, grandchildren, brothers, nieces and nephews everyday. I am struck by the tenacity of the human spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable hardship. No matter what the odds, life will go on and thrive. People will survive and love again.
![Ion's wife, Nina, holds up a photo of Ion and his siblings that was taken in Siberia at the time of his deportation. While Ion successfully returned to Moldova, not all of his family was so lucky. Shortly before their return a younger brother of theirs died due to the extreme cold of Siberia and frailty of body that was a reality for many deportees at the time. Frequently, deportees talk about the small portions of bread and basic food they were given for their days’ work, as well as the small salaries. This coupled with the intense cold of Siberia killed millions of deportees. It was not uncommon for deportees to sell precious family heirlooms for a bucket of potatoes or the like. Nina recalls one such episode where her mother sold off a family heirloom in exchange for a bucket of potatoes, “[My mother left] with her carpet, a Moldavian carpet she wove by hand with a image of two flower baskets and she sold it when winter came because she had nothing to eat. So she sold that carpet [to a Russian] for a bucket of potatoes… I remember that we used to go to their house at nighttime when their lights where on and we could see the carpet through the window. It was so beautiful. I still remember it even though I was so little then. I remember its colors. My heart ached because it no longer belonged to us, because mother sold it for a bucket of potatoes.”](https://i0.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0029_Mary-Estes_Moldovan-Deportees_02-18-2016_4071.jpg?ssl=1 "0029_Mary-Estes_Moldovan-Deportees_02-18-2016_4071")
Ion’s wife, Nina, holds up a photo of Ion and his siblings that was taken in Siberia at the time of his deportation. While Ion successfully returned to Moldova, not all of his family was so lucky. Shortly before their return a younger brother of theirs died due to the extreme cold of Siberia and frailty of body that was a reality for many deportees at the time. Frequently, deportees talk about the small portions of bread and basic food they were given for their days’ work, as well as the small salaries. This coupled with the intense cold of Siberia killed millions of deportees. It was not uncommon for deportees to sell precious family heirlooms for a bucket of potatoes or the like. Nina recalls one such episode where her mother sold off a family heirloom in exchange for a bucket of potatoes, “[My mother left] with her carpet, a Moldavian carpet she wove by hand with a image of two flower baskets and she sold it when winter came because she had nothing to eat. So she sold that carpet [to a Russian] for a bucket of potatoes… I remember that we used to go to their house at nighttime when their lights where on and we could see the carpet through the window. It was so beautiful. I still remember it even though I was so little then. I remember its colors. My heart ached because it no longer belonged to us, because mother sold it for a bucket of potatoes.”
Ion says goodbye to Nina one last time at her gravesite on November 27th, 2016. I had called Thanksgiving day in hopes that I could spend “Old Christmas,” the orthodox epiphany date of Christmas in Moldova held on January 7th. Ion answered the phone. When I asked how he was doing he simply replied, “Bad.” “Why bad?” I asked. “Nina a morit.” He said. Nina died. I was shook by the unexpected loss. For the next couple of days I was sure that I had misheard Ion. ‘My Romanian is bad, I couldn’t have understood correctly,’ I thought. But unfortunately, when I went to their home, there Nina was. This beautiful light of a woman was gone.
Nina’s son Pavel stands next to a costumed creature during one of their family’s vacations. Now grown, Pavel is part of the Police force in Chisinau and his brother, Alex, is a local lawyer. Alex created the Mereni Museum to the deported (Mereni is his father’s home village) and both sons work to tell their parent’s story throughout Moldova.
I stand at the head of Nina’s casket as we start the funeral ceremonies. Though grieving, Ion takes a muted position in the activities. He is quiet and as I raise my camera to photograph him he looks me straight in the eye. A day earlier, during the second day of viewing for Nina in their home, Ion and I talk in his and Nina’s old bedroom. He is looking for sheets to cover the windows – an old orthodox tradition during funerals. “Nina would know where the sheets are but I can’t find them,” he says, “She always took care of things like that.” He takes a moment to sit and be silent away from the crowd. “I suppose I will have to learn to cook for myself too,” he says, ” I have never cooked for myself, not since we were married.” I have to admit that I had the same thought. Throughout our conversation he repeats, “We will remain without her. We will remain without her.” Perhaps a kind of reminder to himself. I ask if I may spend Old Christmas with him. “Of course,” he replies, “Poftim la noi.” You are welcome to visit us. Then, “No, not ‘la noi’,” he remembers, “It is not ‘us’ anymore. It is just me.”
![As I mourned Nina Postica I thought about everything she has yet to say, all of the conversations we would never have. "Surely there are things that I forget to mention…" she muses, "[I wonder if I can] ever remember everything..." I will never sit with her in the summer air again. I will never again hear her recite Mihai Emenescu. I will never get her warm hug as I walk through her kitchen door. I cannot help but think that I failed her, that I didn't capture enough of her story. I was naive to think that I had more time. Life, as it always does, made a point of reminding me that our time is fleeting. Nina's story shows that these stories are dying before our eyes. We must capture them. We must listen. We must show these victims of extreme injustice that we see them, that we hear them and that we believe that what happen to them was wrong. Only we can be insure that this never happens again. Only we can show these former deportees that we care and that their lives, despite the oppression, hardship and shaming that they faced, is important and means something, something deep, something utterly human.](https://i2.wp.com/www.burnmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0035_Moldova-Deportees-2A.jpg?ssl=1 "0035_Moldova-Deportees-2A")
As I mourned Nina Postica I thought about everything she has yet to say, all of the conversations we would never have. “Surely there are things that I forget to mention…” she muses, “[I wonder if I can] ever remember everything…” I will never sit with her in the summer air again. I will never again hear her recite Mihai Emenescu. I will never get her warm hug as I walk through her kitchen door. I cannot help but think that I failed her, that I didn’t capture enough of her story. I was naive to think that I had more time. Life, as it always does, made a point of reminding me that our time is fleeting. Nina’s story shows that these stories are dying before our eyes. We must capture them. We must listen. We must show these victims of extreme injustice that we see them, that we hear them and that we believe that what happen to them was wrong. Only we can be insure that this never happens again. Only we can show these former deportees that we care and that their lives, despite the oppression, hardship and shaming that they faced, is important and means something, something deep, something utterly human.
Bio
Clary Estes was born and raised in Kentucky and is currently living internationally and working on a variety of photography projects in Japan, China and Moldova. After she graduated with a Masters Degree in New Media Photojournalism from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2013 she moved to Japan as an Ishibashi Zaidan Photography Research Fellow with Nagoya University for two years. She is now living and working in rural Moldova with the Peace Corps. As a storyteller, Estes’ interests lie in long-term documentary projects focused on underserved, obscure communities. Her work does not merely document a story straight on; rather, it analyzes and re-analyzes the story over the course of months and years to show the dynamic and complex nature of the stories we live.
I find this one very interesting beyond the merits of the particular essay. As many of you no doubt know, Ms. Estes recently published a manifesto type piece of writing about the “Colonialism” of photojournalism that took particular aim at what she perceives as the Magnum influence on the craft.
https://medium.com/@claryestes_84675/the-colonialism-of-photojournalism-4765dd4e0470
This, I think, is the nut graph:
So does this essay here on burn increase the diversity of image creation through a female, western feminist eye? If so, how so? Are photographers taking something from the subjects while giving them nothing in return, and simultaneously de-legitimizing their voices?
Although “Those Who Remain” doesn’t ape, or aspire to achieve the big time male photojournalist style the reaps paying jobs and prizes, and that Ms. Estes associates with Magnum; I’m not quite seeing how it represents any kind of female or non-western privileged western white male aesthetic. A lot of work I see takes a similar approach, much of mine included. I always suspect the complaints about Magnum and the prize-a-palooza culture are akin to Cure fans complaining about the Garth Brooks’s and Beyonceé’s winning the Grammies. Some visions are more popular than others in every profession.
And regarding all the statistics about representation in the ranks by race and gender, I think Ms. Estes may be falling into the same trap of worshiping Magnum and the other pillars of the white, western, male photojournalism hegemony she criticizes. In my personal experience, which includes a few top level folk and a lot of more mid-level professionals, the idea that getting more women and minorities into the profession is pretty much a universal belief. And although Magnum and VII may have their statistical issues, I see powerful women photo editors at places like the NYT, Washington Post and TNR, as well as scores who are art directors hiring photographers for mid level magazines and newspapers. So the picture is not as bleak as Ms. Estes paints.
And when I am in Africa, I note that Africans are producing just about all the newspapers and magazines in their countries. I note the same thing in South America, Mexico, and Arab countries, and presume it’s true in Asia and pretty much anywhere else. I fear that looking at Magnum and other American and European journalistic institutions and thinking “that’s all that matters in the world” is its own form of colonialist mentality.
And of course the Datta-pocolypse comes up and Ms. Estes writes:
I think that’s very well said, and I couldn’t agree more.
And although I bring up counterpoints, I like the article and appreciate the depth to which she thinks about these things.
How all that relates to her own work? Interesting, but ultimately doesn’t matter. I like the work for its expanded visual perspectives, the quality of the writing, and how the two work together.
I really like the way the old and new photos are mixed up. Thoughtful stuff.
MW
just for the record, Magnum’s last 3 nominees were from Iran (female), Russia (female), India (male)…Yes Magnum was started in France (birthplace of photography) and New York….i doubt we should be somehow punished for it…..the doors of Magnum have been more than open to all religions, cultures and is certainly NOT male oriented…we are scouring the globe constantly for women photographers….black photographers…Chinese photographers etc etc….we must of course START with talented AND in the for the long haul…Magnum is not a contest to win….
the two oldest and most tired discussions in the biz are: (1) is photojournalism dead? (2) why fewer women photographers?….every few years some new writer brings it all up again as if it had never been thought about…..of course that is normal…my best students are almost always women…great stories and then many of them just disappear from the scene..last two winners of EPF were women….i have no idea why many disappear…..when i was in university the big topic was is photoJ dead? ha ha …so funny…..
by the way,the women i know who have made a mark, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Jodi Cobb, Donna Ferrato, Bieke Deporter etc etc have all gotten in this discussion but AFTER they all had done some significant work…while working , they did not talk or write…..criticism is more accepted IF the person doing the critique has something to lay on the table….
Magnum celebrates it’s 70th anniversary in two weeks hosted by the Museum of Modern Art….blast us to hell if you want, but Magnum did make a mark…
David Alan Harvey
If you had actually read my comment, you would have noted that it was Clary Estes who made that critique of Magnum in the article of hers I linked to. Those pull quotes are hers, not me.
I actually defended you all against the points she makes. Really, it’s right there in the text. You can read it.
Seems you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.