Our story takes place in the 1930s in the Arctic region, at the northeastern tip of Greater Russia - on the island of Vigatz. Opponents of the communist regime were sent to this region for hard labor in labor camps notorious as "gulags." Millions of Russians, many of whom were Jews, built the Siberian steppes with their blood, carved kilometers of railroads, and dug a wide canal between the Baltic Sea and the White Sea. On the island of Vigach there were 4,000 forced laborers who quarried coal, mined uranium ore, and worked in the steel mills there. These unfortunates had little chance of returning alive. Most of them were sentenced to ten years or more in prison. And the chances of surviving for such a long period of time in the harsh conditions of the place were extremely low. The workers, of course, were not allowed to meet their families, so every prisoner who came to the island knew that, as in most cases, he would end his life in the area and his body would be thrown into the sea surrounding the camp or buried in a large mass grave.
At the entrance to the camp gate was a large mailbox into which the prisoners could drop letters. Where would these letters have gone? Of course, not for family members. A prisoner who dared to write a letter to his loved ones was sentenced to severe lashes that would keep him confined to bed for days. The same is true of a prisoner who asked for a pardon or claimed that he was being harassed in the camp. The forced laborers quickly learned that it was very worthwhile for them not to write such letters. So what could have been written? The inmates would come up with ideas that might have helped Greater Russia, such as scientific proposals, ideas for the development of weapons of war, compounds of innovative drugs, programs to streamline taxation and economics, and so on. They knew that if the letter reached the right man, they might find themselves outside, recruited under much better conditions – in a respectable institute that operates in the service of the government, or even in a forced labor camp with more favorable conditions.
One of the prisoners sentenced to prison for robbery and fraud was Motya Yurgovich. He was not a scientist, he was not a physicist, and he did not understand economics either. On the other hand, he was endowed with a bad heart, a special cruelty, and the ability to harm others in original and sophisticated ways. He did not want to make a proposal that might help the Russian army, science, medicine, or the economy. He thought of something much more sophisticated. Something that would also rescue him from the camp where he was staying. A week after Motya's envelope was dropped into the prisoners' mailbox, a black car stopped at the entrance to the camp and the prisoner Motya Yurgovich was summoned to accompany two NKVD policemen who led him directly to the district commander's office. The commander held Motya's letter in his hand and exclaimed: 'I propose to our beloved party to open a new system of food budgeting in the camps that will be managed directly according to the output of the prisoners in the work areas.' 'Can you explain to me what you mean?' and Motya explained: 'My suggestion is simple: for the strong prisoners who work hard, increase their daily ration by very little, of course. This will make them work much harder and much harder the next day to get the same ration. The elderly, weak and sick prisoners who work little will get little food. This, of course, will cause them a high mortality rate, and thus you will get rid of the prisoners who are not useful..." The idea was simple, cruel and effective. The district commander patted Motia on the shoulder and promised him that he would let him know what had been decided. Motya didn't have to wait long, a week later he was driven again, this time in a more luxurious car, and discovered himself many hours later in Moscow, meeting with Ivan Sirov – the head of the NKVD himself. "Your idea is wonderful!" said a refusal: "I really wonder how we didn't think of it before." And indeed, a short time later, Motia Yurgovich's new system was implemented in the field, within three months the gulag commanders reported two phenomena: the pace of work doubled, and dozens of old, weak and sick people died.
Mutya was once again invited to Moscow, this time he was no longer a prisoner. He had already been appointed Special Advisor on Forced Labor to the head of the NKVD, and now he was offered to manage the Gulag on the island of Vigatz, where he himself had been a light prisoner until six months ago. Motya quickly agreed, and that same week he was sent to the island, arranging his belongings in the pleasant and warm pavilion of the camp commander. The day of Motya Yurgovich's arrival was a festive day for him. But a black day for the camp workers. Motya did not stop abusing them and found strange and creative ways to make the work more difficult. The prisoners felt that they were on the verge of their limits. But then the turning point occurred. One day, Motya was invited to Moscow, again for a meeting with Ivan Sirov and his team. He arrived confidently, dressed in his best clothes, as if he were familiar with government institutions. He entered the room of the head of the NKVD and bowed in submission. To his surprise, Ivan handed him a piece of paper and asked him to read it aloud. Motya saw that he was holding a page similar to the one he had written about a year ago, with a proposal for order written by a prisoner named Grigory Khrushov. He is imprisoned in the labor camp on the island of Vigac. Grigori's suggestion was simple: to adjust the camp commanders according to the output of the prisoners. In other words, the greater the output, the more successful the census is. A camp commander, whose prisoners show helplessness, will be imprisoned in the camp like them, and this deterrent step will make the commanders of the other camps much more efficient and effective. "This idea," said Sirov, "is so simple and clever that I don't understand how we didn't think of it before. We carried it out, and we found that among all the camp commanders, your prisoners have consistently decreased in productivity over the past three months. We came to the conclusion that we should return you to forced labor, so that it would be a symbol for the other commanders and lead them to maximum and ideal work output..." Motya tried to claim that the prisoners had rebelled against him, and that they had deliberately reduced their output as a result of the letter, but none of this helped. Refusal was already busy with other matters, and the NKVD policemen hurried to take him outside, to the black prisoners' car...
In this week's Torah portion, it is said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. The question is known, if God hardened his heart, why is he guilty? Chazal explain: G-d did not simply harden his heart, but rather Pharaoh who condemned and defied God, and after being warned again and again, he refused to send Bnei Yisrael away from his land, and reached a situation where G-d would not allow him to repent, as it were...
