7000 dana u Sibiru

Karl Steiner's book 7000 Days in Siberia is one of the most moving and important testimonies about the camps and political repressions in the Soviet Union under Stalin's regime. The author, a dedicated Austrian-Yugoslav communist who went to Moscow in the 1930s to serve the Comintern, was caught up in the Great Purge of 1936. Accused on false charges of counter-revolutionary activity and espionage, Steiner endured almost twenty years (7000 days) of political exile, interrogation, torture and hard labor in the cruelest labor camps (gulags) from Solovki to Siberia.

Through authentic, direct and detailed narration, the author describes without pathos the extreme conditions of survival in the Arctic cold, hunger, disease and the ruthless system that turned millions of innocent people into slave labor. At the same time, the book presents a profound analysis of the ideological collapse and absurdity of the system in which he himself believed. The love story and devotion of his wife Sonja, who tirelessly waited for him for twenty years, is also impressive. The publication of this book in 1971 in Yugoslavia had a strong social resonance as an unavoidable document of human endurance, disobedience, and the victory of the spirit over totalitarian evil.