Original subtitles

He was a Party secretary.

As I had criticized the morals

and working methods of one of our leaders,

they said I was attacking the Party.

Going after an individual meant going after the Party.

At first,

I wasn't targeted.

But directives came from on high,

and the 2% rightist quota has risen to 12%.

The objective had to be met.

In my unit, I was very hard-working.

I was in insurance, not in the bank yet.

I was head of the department.

An insurance company?

After Xi'an where I studied, I was sent to Tianshui.

I said he had bad morals,

and should correct himself

and work a bit harder.

He took it out on everyone,

saying the Revolution had caused the loss of his family

and that he wasn't paid accordingly.

He wanted compensation!

The Revolution caused his loss.

I wasn't the only one to criticize him in the company,

but I was the only one to express myself openly.

They made me pay for it.

- With sessions of criticism? - Of course!

Of course! You couldn't avoid them.

Public accusation sessions conducted by "activists".

I was sitting at my desk.

They dragged me to the middle of the room.

As I did that, they said I'd hit them.

I resisted!

Several of them dragged me, so I resisted.

They said I'd hit them

and added another charge:

"Negative attitude, violent

and arrogant behavior."

The Disciplinary Board wasn't in favor of my conviction.

But Feng, the leader I had criticized,

lobbied the Council so I'd be accused of being rightist.

There!

Once there, things were OK at first.

After a while,

2 or 3 months, we ran out of grain.

The town of Jiuquan no longer supplied us with food.

Our farm had to be self-sufficient.

At that time, the Secretary of Gansu, Zhang Zhongliang,

had stated that farms had to be self-sufficient.

It was OK for labor reform farms,

but we were one of those labor re-education farms

which had replaced them, and the previous employees had gone.

There were over 2,000 of us.

Almost 3,000.

The place was called Jiabiangou.

We were sent by our work units.

Like High School no. 3,

Tianshui Normal School,

the market gardening cooperative,

the insurance company,

and Public Safety.

We were sent by our work units.

2 people escorted us.

1 in army uniform, with his rifle.

The other in plain clothes, a friend from the radio.

They're both still alive.

Historical counter-revolutionaries were all handcuffed.

As ordinary rightists, we were authorized

to make certain purchases.

First came the breakdown into teams.

Then we'd go to the construction site.

We dug very deep trenches.

The size of a man and more.

The height of this room.

They were wide too.

We dug to drain the ammonia.

A task reserved for the construction team.

The Dean of Lanzhou University, Chen Shiwei,

wrote down the tasks to carry out.

The Dean of Lanzhou University, Chen Shiwei.

He was exempted from heavy tasks

and he recorded our work hours.

We had to dig.

There was the construction,

agricultural, and ancillary work teams.

3 teams.

We were the construction team.

Can you explain to me how you dug the trenches?

At first,

the work was moving slowly.

Then, I had the idea

of using a lever system.

Then, I went a lot faster.

The same system as the one used to draw water in the south.

You lower your bucket like this

and you lever it back up.

That way, you force less.

With this lever system, we went faster.

We dug till we reached the water.

We had our feet in the water and our legs were rotting.

Ammonia has a very corrosive effect in the trenches.

I worked in the trenches for a long time.

Over 2 months.

Then, they sent me to the gypsum quarry.

We lost someone from Tianshui in the quarry.

There hadn't been a death then.

A block crushed him.

The head of an elementary school in Tianshui.

School no. 1, Construction Street.

His name was Zhang Xiu.

Crushed to death.

The 1st death not due to hunger.

An accidental death.

He crushed by a block of gypsum.

We had to extract a certain amount of gypsum every day.

A cubic meter, say.

If you tried to come down too soon, you'd get no food.

The men were exhausted.

How many never had worked with their hands?

You had to work fast, because the plaster was exported.

It was the camp's subsidiary production.

The plaster was excellent quality.

Later, they sent me to the Qilian Mountains

to extract iron ore.

After a while at the mine,

I worked at Jiuquan, on the construction site of...

Qingshuipu.

They were building a road

to the satellite launch base.

We extracted stone and sand and loaded the trucks.

We'd stand either side and load them with shovels.

It was over a period of time.

After that, they put me in Beidahe,

near Jiayuguan.

There was a stone quarry.

We slept in tents.

Then, I got sick

and I was sent back to Jiabiangou.

I couldn't do it anymore.

I had a big problem with my lungs.

They sent me back to the central station.

Over there, they put me on auxiliary activities.

Towards the end, my face and legs were all swollen.

We had no food.

The government didn't provide us with supplies.

We used to eat grasses like those in the rice paddies.

Only then, we didn't have bowel movements.

We had to clean each other out

till our anuses bled, because of what we ate!

We ate the leaves of date trees.

It's a region of date palms, and we ate the leaves.

After I got sick, I never left the station again.

I stayed at the central station, but there was also an annex,

Xintiandun annex.

And also Mingshui camp, in Gaotai.

They sent the strongest there.

Many died there.

- Did you ever go to Mingshui? - To Mingshui, never.

The first time my wife came to see me,

it was very cold.

I had a string around my waist.

I had no buttons and I closed my jacket with a string.

A rotten old hat on my head.

My wife burst into tears when she saw me.

What had they done to me?

My face was... lined.

Emaciated and lined.

The 2nd time she came,

my face and legs were all swollen.

Edemas caused by malnutrition.

Not one of us avoided it.

Not one.

Not one.

At the end, the dormitories were sparsely populated.

This person died, then, that one.

The man next to me was called Wang Rui.

He was from Tianshui High School no. 1.

He died next to me.

He said: "Zhao, I'm hungry! Get me some groats."

I brought him his groats, but he was dead.

Wang Rui.

His wife is in the pedestrian street, the former eastern part of Zhonghua.

She's over there.

He's dead.

An excellent teacher. from High School no. 1.

He was a talented mathematics teacher.

He's dead.

I was asked to bury him, but I didn't have the strength.

We buried them in the ravines of Jiabiangou.

We just dug a little.

At first, the caskets

were made of thin boards, then the wood ran out.

So, we used straw.

But it took time,

so we ended up wrapping the dead in their blankets

and tying them with string.

When night fell,

we'd put them on an ox cart.

Sometimes, 5 or 6 would go together.

And we buried them.

I saw it with my own eyes. I tell it like it is.

The cart was pulled by an ox, not a horse.

When was this?

It was

at the start of 1960.

There were so many deaths.

Fu Zuogong, Fu Zuoyi's brother, was in my team.

Fu Zuoyi.

You know who I mean? A celebrity!

His brother had studied in the USA.

He helped develop the province's water.

An engineer. Another who was sent to die there.

No?

The principal of Northwest Normal School,

Li Huafang, died there.

The principal of Northwest Normal School

died there.

The women went crazy!

There were some with us.

About 20 of them.

My wife is no longer with us.

She passed on 8 years ago.

Without my wife, I certainly wouldn't be here.

She was exemplary with me.

A lot of wives got divorced.

Not mine.

Most got divorced

and remarried.

Not mine.

She was wonderful to me.

My wife sent me a parcel every month.

At the time, the Post Office prohibited parcels

parcels of grain.

The most you could do was send a kilo of roasted flour.

Families would send us roasted flour.

As it was forbidden in town, they sent it from the country...

from country post offices.

A cousin who was in Tibet brought me butter.

Yak butter that he brought me from Tibet.

This cousin was a driver for the army in the region.

He could afford it and supplied me on the way.

We were too poor.

My family couldn't help me.

They even expected me to help them.

Times were hard. We were destitute.

Yet Hanzhong, where we lived, was a prosperous region.

It wasn't enough. and famine decimated the region.

So many people died of hunger in Gansu.

People fled to Shaanxi.

In Shaanxi, the Party Secretary was Zhang Desheng.

In Gansu, it was Zhang Zhongliang.

Zhang Zhongliang said: "In Gansu, there's lots of grain."

Zhang Desheng retorted:

"Why do so many people flee your province then?"

Everyone who lived along the railroad tracks was leaving.

Qingshui, my wife's country,

Zhangchuan,

Qin'an, Tongwei,

Gangu, Wushan, Longxi.

In this area, there were a lot of death.

They all starved to death.

You saw people walking along the street

and suddenly collapse, stone dead.

The last time my wife came,

I didn't move from my bed.

She burst into tears.

The situation was so terrible.

We didn't move from our beds.

The dormitories were deserted.

Just empty beds!

We used to be all huddled up.

There were just a few scattered individuals.

My wife slept with me

in the same dormitory.

The 2nd time, she came without my son.

On the train, she got scammed.

"Ma'am, lend me your ticket, I'll get you some water."

She never saw her ticket again.

When she got off the train, my wife told the inspector:

"A woman stole my ticket. pretending to get me some water."

My wife convinced the inspector.

Once in Jiuquan,

she had a cup stolen.

When she saw me half dead, she burst into tears.

She went to beg

Secretary Liang and Director Liu.

She had a letter from the Disciplinary Committee.

They took their time to make their minds up.

She stayed a long time,

more than the first time.

At least 5 days.

They were studying my case and discussing it.

We waited.

In the last months, no-one worked.

The men stayed lying down.

There was nothing to eat.

You were given a ladle of gruel per meal.

A ladle of food wasn't enough.

The porridge was made with coarse flour.

What else?

The roasted flour my wife sent me.

A few spoonfuls here and there.

You didn't eat too much in case you couldn't stand it.

You had to learn.

She put oil in the flour,

grilled flour in oil.

I ate it slowly, and it kept me alive.

I had traded a Swiss watch

for 1.5 kg of cereals in ration stamps.

I had asked someone to trade it for me in Jiuquan.

I had to let it for 500g of stamps,

but at least, he brought back some treats.

It wasn't easy!

You traded a Swiss watch for 1.5 kg in cereal stamps

and a wool blanket for 1 or 1.5 kg.

Communication channels weren't easy, either.

It was just before...

before...

before New Year's in 1961.

Could you still walk?

With great difficulty.

I left the central station

in a horse-drawn cart.

It took us...

It took us...

It was supposed to take us to the road,

but as no vehicle passed by, we carried on in it to Jiuquan.

We spent the night in Jiuquan.

The next day, we managed to buy train tickets.

We spent a night in Lanzhou before coming back to Tianshui.

My wife went to a lot of trouble to get me out of there.

The camp management had to wait for the green light

from the delegation in charge to release me.

Or I wouldn't go home.

The last to return en masse

had to wait till March and April.

March and April 1961.

How many came home to Tianshui?

About 10 maybe.

At the end, it was atrocious.

One night, I was told to go bury the dead

in exchange for an extra ladle of gruel

and...

and some black bread.

I refused, thinking I couldn't do it.

We were bedridden!

We couldn't move.

I still had to go.

We hoisted up to 6 bodies on the cart.

We dug a shallow hole

and we covered the body with some dirt.

The slightest gust of wind uncovered the bodies.

On a red brick, we wrote: Grave of XXX.

That's how it was.

All buried in the ravine!

The principal of High School no. 1, Ren Jiwen, died there.

His wife, from Shanghai,

is now head of the Mother & Child Health Center.

Ren Jiwen came from Gangu.

The head of High School no. 1!

Died there.

When his wife came to the camp, we'd buried him long before.

Long before.

What we lived in Jiabiangou,

no-one wrote it.

With all the suffering we had there,

who would have wanted to write about it?

Those who lived Jiabiangou don't write.

What's the point?

You imagine an unforgettable landscape?

Not worth it.

There are some photos, but they're not great.

You see a woman

standing

in the ruins.

- In Jiabiangou. - In the desalination trenches?

Not trenches, the holes we lived in!

Caves?

There are photos in magazines.

Did you live there?

No.

Where did you stay there?

I was on the construction team

and I worked outside on the construction sites.

We slept in tents.

Is that where you ran away from?

I ran away when I was in Jiuquan.

What were you doing in Jiuquan?

I don't remember that.

In novels,

everything is told in detail.

It was hard and we were hungry.

Do you think it was a picnic?

We were starving.

We had to beg.

Yet you were on the construction team?

The construction team was rationed, too.

We had 10 or 12 kilos of grain a month, no more.

What do you think?

It was no picnic!

Did you think we were living the good life?

It's not what you think.

In winter, we slept in tents. It was very cold.

We'd get up at dawn

and we were given a spongy cake.

All white and spongy.

This big.

Square.

We got a piece each

before going to work.

It would have taken

7 or 8 to feed a man.

Do you think one was enough?

We would have needed 7 or 8.

What do you expect?

If you must know,

I'll have to explain.

Why don't I have kids?

Because I'm not married! Where would these kids come from?

I don't need to draw you a picture!

The ones you see here aren't my family.

They're photos of my brothers' kids.

They're my nephews, see?

- Your nephews. - Yes, my nephews.

And my nephews' children!

But you have a wife, right?

That's what I was trying to explain.

I'd been married for barely a year

when the anti-rightist movement began.

I was accused and sent to Jiabiangou.

And my wife went off with someone else.

She found someone else.

Now you understand!

It wouldn't help to give you more details, would it?

I went to the labor re-education camp

and my wife filed for divorce to go off with another.

That's what happened.

Since then, I've lived like this.

I've spent my whole life like this.

My whole life.

And I'll spare you the details.

It wasn't easy, but what's the point of telling you all that?

I'm not the only one in this situation.

Many people experienced the same thing,

but they don't want to talk about it.

It's destiny.

We Chinese say: "It's your destiny!"

And if I've had this life, it's destiny too.

That's how destiny decided it, without wanting to be superstitious.

That's what you must understand.

Everything I own, I bought it with the money

I earned by working,

not with public money.

Oh, no!

I should have been given a pension by the store,

by the department store in Tianshui.

But it doesn't exist anymore.

Who can I ask for it?

Even though some people know my situation,

they won't talk.

They won't talk!

Why would they talk? It's all in the past.

Those from Mao Zedong's time know what this is all about.

They don't say anything either!

What are broken homes?

Nowadays, families aren't like they used to be.

Those who were in Jiabiangou...

Those who...

Those who were in Jiabiangou

are all...

They're all dead.

Their families didn't even know they were there.

That's so with many.

I'm not the only one not talking.

And you're lucky you met me first.

You're interested in Jiabiangou!

No-one wants to discuss it.

And most are dead.

Yes, they're dead.

Do you drink that alcohol?

At least you know what it is!

And yet you don't drink.

You don't drink and you know it.

Among drinkers,

most...

Here, even in the restaurant,

lovers of alcohol

don't know "Red Star" erguotou.

And yet "Red Star" white liquor

represents China today.

I only stayed for a year and a half in Jiabiangou.

Then, I ran away.

I fled.

On your own?

I wasn't particularly daring.

Many of us ran away at the time.

They just don't say it.

Today, people don't talk about that time.

It's not appropriate to talk about it.

I stayed several years at Shaanxi.

I stayed 3 and a half years.

3 and a half years.

I escaped from Jiabiangou and went to Shaanxi.

Because when you escape, you become a fugitive!

Was it better at Shaanxi?

We could get by.

In Shaanxi, I found myself in a re-education camp.

But your life wasn't in danger there.

Recently, I was hospitalized and I almost died.

It was my heart.

I've always been fragile, remember?

They managed to revive me.

They revived you?

Good.

The municipal hospital is well equipped now.

Did you see a doctor about your kidney pain?

There's no need. With some rest, it'll pass.

I get up from time to time and I sit down for a bit.

I don't understand why it hurts.

It was OK before.

I thought I was better. I've spent too long sitting.

It tired me out.

Were you writing?

I sat down to pray.

I still wonder why

they sent us to Gaotai in the middle of winter

for spring sowing.

For sowing,

first of all, we didn't have any seeds.

Secondly, we didn't have any tools.

Thirdly, we didn't know where to sow.

Fourthly, there was no water.

Fifthly, we had nowhere to stay.

How could we cultivate the land like this?

The most regrettable

and incomprehensible thing

was that they were sending the men

before their luggage.

I was in charge of luggage transport and I came last.

The men were there, in the middle of nowhere,

several dozen men all huddled up.

They had just spent over 10 days

outside, at temperatures of minus 20 degrees.

I arrived last with all the luggage.

Professor Li's wife brought him food.

Or he would have starved to death.

If I'm still alive, it's because of my mother.

With Professor Li, it's thanks to his wife.

My mother came one day when it was snowing very hard.

The snow had covered our shelters,

and she had a hard time finding us.

- It was in Mingshui. - Near the station.

When it snowed a lot, it was in Mingshui.

Someone from Tianshui, Yang Yousheng.

Yang Yousheng.

One day, a friend came to see me.

He was accompanied by a man I didn't know.

They came together.

The man was a preacher.

He told me that his father was...

the head of Jiabiangou.

Jiabiangou was only part of a whole.

The camp consisted of several places.

He was the head of the whole thing.

Jiabiangou was just one division.

He had received an order from the Province

to give only 200 grams of cereals a day to prisoners.

200 grams per person per day.

After receiving this order,

his father,

who was an early veteran,

a veteran of the Red Army who had his say,

200 grams...

He refused to obey.

He drew from the reserves to guarantee 24 pounds of grain.

Some time later,

someone turned him in.

He was removed from office.

Once revoked, he was transferred to Lanzhou

where he was inactive for 3 years.

That's what the document says.

Reducing the ration to 200g was an order from above!

They wanted to starve you to death.

It was deliberate.

It's terrible, isn't it?

- Failure to supply grain. - He died in 1981.

He was a Red Army veteran.

- Is that what this document says? - Yes.

I asked this friend

to put everything in writing

on this document.

This document is terrible!

It was deliberate!

- Was there any grain? - Yes.

There was some... but they didn't give it out.

They wanted to see you starve to death.

It's a terrible revelation!

200 grams to say we fed you without allowing you to live!

The peasants of Jiabiangou that I questioned

told me that with 200 grams a day, they couldn't stand up.

They leaned against the walls and on their sticks.

I didn't know about the peasants.

I just knew about the prisoners.

There were 4 professors from Lanzhou University

who hung themselves there.

Did you see him?

He told us.

- That man? - Yes, he heard it from his father.

What did you bring your husband in Jiabiangou?

In Jiabiangou?

I brought him...

I brought him hard-boiled eggs.

- You had eggs? - And flax seed cakes.

5 or 6, this big.

It was in...

in 1960.

In December 1960...

I received a telegram

telling me that his health had deteriorated significantly

and asking me to go.

I took a week off

and I went there.

It was in December.

At first,

I set off on foot.

There was no transport.

Vehicles were very rare between Tianshui and Beidao.

Vehicles were very rare.

I set off on foot from Tianshui.

To Ershipu.

There I found a horse-drawn cart.

A man who was transporting something.

I asked him if he could take me on his cart.

- To Beidao. - To the station?

To Beidao station.

When we arrived,

it was almost nighttime.

I took the train

and I arrived in Lanzhou shortly before dawn.

In Lanzhou, I had to change.

I took another train

to Jiuquan.

In the train,

between Lanzhou and Jiuquan,

I met a woman.

She was making the same journey.

She lived in Lanzhou,

and her husband was in Jiuquan.

She was going to see him.

We made the trip together.

We kept each other company.

Once we got there,

as I'd never been there,

the woman guided me.

She took me into town.

It was already nighttime.

She took me to someone who had a horse-drawn cart

and who took goods

to the re-education camp.

A man with a cart.

She said that the 2 times she'd been to see her husband,

she'd slept at their place.

She introduced me to these people

so I could spend the night.

They didn't want to put me up.

The next day, the man had to deliver coal to Mingshui,

but he didn't want to take me.

Let's just say he wanted to be paid.

He could see I had several bags.

He wanted something in exchange.

As I was naive,

I put my bags down,

and in a momentary lapse of concentration,

he helped himself and took 2 cakes.

I still insisted, and he took me.

We left at around 10 AM

and we arrived late in the afternoon.

We arrived at Mingshui at around 6 PM.

I stayed there

for 3 or 4 days.

In Mingshui...

I stayed for several days in Mingshui.

I introduced myself to the head

who put me

in the dormitory.

It was a huge troglodyte shelter.

Really huge!

They slept on the ground in an area this high.

There was earth with some grass on top.

There was Professor Pu.

I even used his mattress for the night!

I huddled up against my husband.

Men and women all slept in the same place.

I slept, snuggled up against him.

When I woke up,

the snow had fallen.

It was so cold!

Was your husband still able to get up?

He could, but he was skinny,

as skinny as a nail!

- He could stand up. - Did you sleep in the shelter?

Yes, for 2 days.

Then we were told to sleep with the carpenters.

They had their place.

We slept with them.

I spent 2 nights there before I went home.

- Mingshui had a carpentry shop? - Yes.

Did you come back with Professor Li?

Did you come back with Professor Li?

We left and came back the same day.

Incredible, isn't it?

We left on May 8, 1958

and came home in late December 1960.

Do you know why I'm so sure?

We spent the New Year on the train to Lanzhou.

My son Minmin doesn't want me to have visitors.

He's worried I'll get too tired.

Minmin is worried.

How many years since you last saw him?

Oh, my!

- What is it, Xiaozhen? - Don't worry!

Don't ask questions and sleep.

He's just filming a bit.

Don't talk. Close your eyes.

- Alright. - He's just filming.

- Rest. - I left him the phone number.

Do you want me to call Liu Tianyou?

Don't worry, I gave him the number.

When I was in the camp at Mingshui,

I worked for what they called the central. In other words...

Before, it was a State farm in the Gaotai district.

It was a very simple place!

It had only huts made of earth, without even a tiled roof.

Mud-brick huts

with a small kitchen.

The rooms were really small.

Two rooms

for the cadres to sleep in

and a small, separate room that we used as a kitchen.

Another small barrack, on the edge of a valley,

housed the infirmary, with its medicines and doctors.

Other than that, everyone slept under the tent,

at least until people began to arrive in mass from Xintiandun.

I was on the installation team.

I arrived there very early on.

I remember that at the time,

the director of Jiabiangou was Liu Zhenyu.

And the head of the Production brigade was called Liang.

- Liang Jingxiao. - Yes, Liang Jingxiao.

Liang Jingxiao was from Lintao.

As he was responsible for Jiabiangou's agricultural production,

I took him with me.

With his men,

we were supposed to set up the future camp at Mingshui.

But what could we do in a place like that?

At first, I took care of the stewardship.

At Jiabiangou, I was already in charge of the collective kitchens.

We cooked for over 1,000 people who were in re-education at the camp.

And as there were Hui Muslims, we had two separate kitchens.

In 1959, faced with the increasing numbers of deaths,

we also created a kitchen for the sick.

At Jiabiangou, the situation was still acceptable.

The problems began at the end of 1960,

when we were transferred to Mingshui.

The conditions there dictated life at the camp.

Food was strictly rationed.

When I got to Mingshui,

the ration allocated to rightists by the government

was 250 grams of course grain per person.

The cadres

were allowed 14 kg of flour. That was 450g per day.

Let's see...

The cadres received flour.

The camp inmates, with their 250g of grains,

had around 200g of flour.

What was Jiabiangou like when you arrived?

A re-education camp... reform through work,

for criminals.

From July 1956, the only people who stayed there to work

were those who had completed their sentences.

It became a professional farm.

When the professional farm was created,

I took care of the management.

I managed the cadres' kitchen.

Later on,

I became an instructor.

And then,

I was transferred to the Secretariat.

In the beginning, I was a clerk,

then, I became a secretary.

From the end of 1956 until the month of July 1958,

I was a secretary.

In 1958...

In 1958, with the mass arrival of rightists,

the kitchens were quickly overwhelmed.

The population increased

because of those who had to be re-educated!

Daily life became unmanageable

and I was asked to resume management of the stewardship.

I had a team of managers and accountants,

I was in charge of the kitchens, basically, I looked after everything.

Let's say I managed the daily life.

As I said earlier,

that included managing 2 kitchens, but also the Xintiandun annex.

Managing the food was also one of my duties.

From 1959,

food began to be scarce.

Why wasn't there enough?

If we relied on our production,

our self-sufficiency would only last for a few months.

So we depended on the State, but the quantities were rationed.

I remember the grain ration was 21 kg,

which meant 20 kg of flour.

That was enough.

In 1958 and 1959, there was still enough.

But from 1960, the situation got worse.

- Why? - What?

Why was there not enough food in 1960?

Why? Because they didn't give us anymore!

Restrictions had been announced for everybody.

They spoke of natural disasters to explain the lack of grains.

Ridiculous! Some regions never stopped producing.

But others inflated figures to earn merit

and "to fan the winds of Communism."

Because of "balanced distribution", we started to lack food.

As if we lacked cereal!

A farm is a unit of cereal production.

If you don't produce enough, the State makes up for the lack,

but that's how they'd catch you out!

Were people very dispersed at the Mingshui site?

They were spread across 3 valleys.

There was the East valley, called the "central",

and later on, the "East station".

Then, as there were more and more deaths,

we gathered together at the Middle station.

I went to deliver coal for the first time

towards the end of December

and that's when I discovered that the Middle station existed.

There were few sheep.

The carcasses came from Jiabiangou.

When was that?

In December.

The situation was terrible. It was the end for all those people!

They didn't even get up anymore.

They died in their sleep.

They didn't wake up.

Working and receiving only two ladles of gruel.

Two small ladles of pale gruel thickened with a little flour.

Cooked meals were out of the question there!

Two spoonfuls that weren't even enough to warm you up.

People were dying of hunger, damn!

They lived in dug out holes in the desert.

They cut plants without their roots,

and slipped them under their sleeping area.

For nothing!

Those plants don't hold heat like straw.

It was ridiculous!

To put those people through...

They wanted them to die.

When you got to Mingshui, did you plant crops?

What would we have planted? We were already well into autumn.

I arrived in October, after the national holiday.

We came to Jiabiangou as scouts,

after the national holiday.

Our mission

was to start to organize the lands,

to lay the foundations for the following year.

We were meant to plant the crops in the spring of '61.

But the cold weather arrived shortly after we did!

There was no longer any chance of farming the land.

We were told to compensate for the lack of cereals with vegetables.

Vegetables in the desert

when we only had sand to eat!

There was nothing.

Produce, always produce!

Start planting crops

when temperatures bordered on -40 degrees in winter!

What could we plant?

What did you do in the beginning?

It was ridiculous!

We dug trenches, built roads,

and erected tents. We cleared sterile lands!

It was a waste of time given the state of the land.

They were easing their consciences.

Clear and work the land!

None of the land was flat. What could we do with it?

We had barely started the work when we were forced to stop.

What could we do?

The men no longer had the strength to move.

Also, agriculture is governed by the seasons.

What can you do in winter?

With temperatures that drop to below 38 degrees,

can you farm the land?

It is as hard as steel.

A layer of frozen soil over one meter thick!

Land that is frozen for over one meter in depth,

can it be farmed?

Sending the men there, was condemning them in advance.

All those rightists dying of hunger,

how were they meant to fight off death?

How many people survived Mingshui?

After I left, I don't know how many of them remained.

So many of them died!

We didn't really know how many of us there were.

Death brings about situations...

How could we have kept a precise record?

That wasn't part of my job.

No real strategy had actually been set up.

This had nothing to do with the old re-education centers,

that were divided into sections:

the Production section...

The Surveillance and Re-education section,

and the Accounting section that incorporated Supplies.

Everything was clearly organized.

We went to Mingshui as a temporary measure.

"The sparrow may be small, it still needs all its entrails."

Otherwise nothing works!

We had no system established and nothing definite in place.

Was the number of deaths recorded on a daily basis?

Yes, it was recorded.

Well, in the beginning we managed.

Later on...

We couldn't dig, the ground was as hard as steel.

The deceased were rolled up in their blankets,

tied at each end with the cords from their bags

and placed on a cart.

The horses limped to the foot of the dune.

We barely dug down and sometimes the wind blew,

burying the bodies under the sand.

Sometimes, the wind uncovered the bodies.

It was horrendous. I won't say any more.

After the North-West Conference,

the authorities decided to put a stop to these deaths.

A place like Mingshui, with caves for shelters,

had to be replenished from the outside.

Cereals needed to be sent there.

The nearest supplies were in Gaotai.

There was nothing left to eat on site.

There weren't even anymore plants for the straw mats.

Even water was a problem, so food...

The conditions were really extreme.

It was in the month of

December 1960,

that we began to leave the premises.

At that time, the authorities sent us...

They came with coaches,

coaches with seats.

To take us back to the Gaotai farm camp.

To Jianquanzi, the farm's central station.

They had made a large barracks available

for everyone to sleep in.

In my case...

I can't remember exactly. It's too far away in my memory.

Was everyone transferred by coach to the farm in Gaotai?

One journey was not enough.

The first time, there was only one coach.

The transfer took a long time.

People were transferred gradually.

The move took over ten days.

Did some people go straight to Lanzhou?

- No! - Without going through Gaotai.

Everyone went through Gaotai.

I remember that everyone was taken to the Gaotai farm.

The mortality issue was far from resolved.

We could say the situation did improve a little.

Some say that they took the train directly from Mingshui.

That was much later on!

At first,

they sent the doctors to Gaotai.

A first coach was sent ahead,

to prepare the field.

As I knew the managers of all the camps,

I also left in the first convoy.

How was the Mingshui camp shut down?

I had already left.

I didn't go back there. They kept me at the Gaotai farm.

I had so much to do there.

The Mingshui farm gradually emptied during the month of December.

It was evacuated.

The modest remaining activity was transferred to Gaotai.

And, like you said, some people had to leave by train from Mingshui.

If you are asking,

people did leave by train from Mingshui to Lanzhou,

but that was later on.

Before...

I had already left Mingshui.

Why return to a hellish place like that?

So I can't tell you how they closed the camp.

Some cadres had stayed there.

I remember going back there once after the transfer.

I went to the Middle station in Mingshui

where the director Liu Zhenyu had stayed.

People who'd been scattered around were gathered at the Middle station.

People from the East and West stations had all been taken there.

To a dry river bed!

With makeshift shelters dug out of the ground.

It must have been

around...

It must have been in January 1961, or at the end of 1960,

around December 20.

Between the end of 1960 and the beginning of 1961.

One day, when I was walking,

I bumped into the director of the Jiuquan tool factory, Li Qingming.

He signaled to me.

"I want you to take me there." "Tell me what's happening first."

"How can I put it...

"I need you to talk to Liu."

I was close to the director,

and he knew I could talk to him easily.

He said to me: "Apparently in Mingshui,

they kill sheep to save the lives of the sick.

Can you tell Liu that I've bought coal,

and ask him for a sheep in exchange?"

"I don't know if that's possible but I will ask him.

Alright!

I'll ask him.

I'll tell him that transporting coal is a tough job.

I'll get what you want!"

And we set off.

When we got there,

Liu was happy!

Without coal, you couldn't do anything.

To boil water, warm yourself, cook your gruel,

you needed fire.

I spoke to director Liu.

"Alright!", he said.

It was the way to maintain a good relationship.

"We had to find a vehicle,

to bring the coal here."

He gave us a sheep.

At the time, I was getting ready to go to Lanzhou.

My wife was studying at the Lanzhou school of Chinese medicine.

I had decided to join her.

He accepted without batting an eyelid!

He chose the sheep. He cut its head off

and removed all of its guts to give us the carcass.

Once the animal had been gutted, it weighed between 10 and 15 kilos.

A small carcass.

I said: "I'm leaving for Lanzhou and I'd really like some meat too."

We did what we could to survive.

Liu said to me: "Take that one and ask Li to share it with you."

What could I say?

We took the sheep and they gave me 1.5 kg of meat.

They cut off the head with half of the neck.

They offered me a thigh but I refused.

A piece of the breast was enough for me.

Even if when I returned, I'd have to share.

I had to think of the driver and there wasn't very much.

It was good because the opportunity had arisen

and food was scarce, so why complain?

There may have been sheep in Jiabiangou and elsewhere,

but at Mingshui there was nothing.

I was already in Gaotai when I made this visit

to the Middle station of Mingshui.

About one week later,

everybody had left the Middle station.

Only those who could still walk had taken the train in Mingshui.

Indeed, some did take the train.

Liu Zhenyu waited until everybody had left, to return to Gaotai.

When he arrived, he asked me to go to West station in Gaotai.

Death was a part of our daily lives.

There was no point being afraid.

When the nurses weren't able to lift the bodies,

you helped lift them onto the cart

and stabilize it.

But you weren't meant to do things that weren't part of your duties.

As if we could have shown compassion for those men!

And there was your class conscience!

Who could bear being submitted to the criticisms?

I promised myself I would not treat anyone badly.

That wasn't the case of some heads of teams

who took it out on the men if the work was badly done.

They deprived you of food, those little chiefs!

Some production managers were cruel to the men.

So it became normal to live alongside death?

It was part of our daily lives.

A sad reality.

A reality that aroused neither sorrow nor surprise.

An oil lamp threatening to go out

for which you have no fuel to revive it.

People didn't die during the day.

When someone died, they were taken outside.

The others didn't even realize.

We gathered the bodies in the evening

and took care of them the next day.

- Where did you put them? - I didn't deal with them.

If I wasn't on duty, I didn't stay around the sick.

What was the point? Witnessing that misery!

It affects you and you can't do a thing.

You can't change the course of things.

That roughly sums up the situation.

It's past history,

but everything I told you really did happen.

In the past, I tried to establish a clear boundary

between us and the enemy.

As a cadre, your position had to be clear.

If your opinions were wrong, you exposed yourself to criticism.

What would you have done?

Faced with inappropriate ideas or a malfunction,

you had no rights nor power.

Even the farm's management had no say.

No matter if you thought you were faultless,

the slightest mistake, the tiniest inappropriate thought,

and you were criticized immediately.

You no longer dared say anything.

A cadre from Public Security

who wasn't inflexible? Impossible.

It was a matter of principles.

You got used to living in that kind of environment.

If you didn't have outright power, you couldn't do anything.

Right?

The reality was as simple as that

and the hierarchy was very strict!

Who would have dared to act on their thoughts?

You got your work done with no room for negotiation.

There was no place for compassion

even faced with certain conduct...

But our integrity had to restrain us so that we'd never lose control,

never insult or mistreat people who had lacked discipline.

Because that was illegal!

Did that happen often?

Sometimes, but never excessively.

Public Security was subject to discipline.

They weren't able to do whatever they wanted.

Especially as rightists were different from other criminals.

They weren't guarded by armed police

like the other criminals.

Also, the length of their sentences, as I told you.

Undetermined length for the rightists,

and 5 to 10 years for the others, who, if they behaved well,

were able to make an application to the courts.

Their sentence could be revised and their release brought forward.

But the rightists, they might delude themselves with hope!

It was the end for them. They had hit jackpot!

What could we have done?

Some of them were senior civil servants,

who had gotten into trouble with their superiors

who then engineered a plan against them.

Some of the accusations were false or had been exaggerated.

There was nothing rightist about them.

Even if we knew this, we couldn't say anything.

Your class

and the opinions you were meant to hold didn't give you that right.

So?

Who would have dared defend them?

It was a death sentence!

They were accused of being members of an anti-Party clique,

but they weren't against the Party.

They'd just made some criticisms

about the Committee's communist comrades.

But shortly after, the anti-rightist campaign

revived the attacks

against those sanctioned by the previous movement.

They were found to be rightist without having said anything.

They hadn't said a single word

and yet they were called rightist.

After that,

they were sent to the re-education labor camp.

I also found myself implicated.

I had raised the following question:

Since the formerly convicted members of the Party

can get their jobs back, now we no longer talk

about an anti-Party clique,

is it possible that the others also be rehabilitated

and get their jobs back?

Those who had been demoted, sanctioned

and cast aside,

couldn't we consider

that they be rehabilitated during the anti-rightist campaign?

I suggested to the Party that it would be fair

that these people be recalled from exile

and sent home.

For me, the question of non-communists

was settled much too severely.

So, my case was reviewed

and I was accused of being a rightist.

We were now two convicts, left to our own devices.

He was transferred from Zhangjiachuan to Jiabiangou.

You couldn't see each other?

As they had to go through Tianshui,

they let him come home.

He must have stayed in all

for about 20 minutes.

That day, he took the writings of Mao Zedong.

He was happy.

He said to me: "Don't look after my business!"

He seemed to be saying...

"There, I can re-educate myself.

I will be made

a new man. I'll get a new look."

The works of Mao Zedong under his arm,

he left.

When he called in at home,

he dropped off his things and took others.

He gave me some recommendations and left.

As he went, he was full of hope.

He seemed really...

really hopeful.

He wasn't particularly prepared.

He just took the clothes he needed.

People had told him it was a good place.

Once they got there,

they were told it was being turned

into a sort of idyllic farm

where families would be allowed.

He told us that one day, we could all move in.

- Is that what he wrote from there? - Yes, he did.

He died 2 years later.

He went to Jiabiangou in October 1958.

At this time of year.

No, it was in September!

After the 15th of the 8th month of the lunar calendar.

At first,

in his letters,

he told me what their work involved.

Not once

did I hear him complain.

How often did he write?

At the start, he could still write.

Then, his health declined.

He couldn't stand due to hunger.

When he wrote,

he asked me to send walnuts,

because he was constipated.

His bowel movements stopped.

We didn't know he was living

in far harder conditions than us.

We didn't know.

But when we sent him food, he didn't receive it.

He asked me for roasted flour,

but it never reached him.

The cadres must have intercepted the parcels.

One day, I sent him a blanket

in which I had hidden a pound of roasted flour.

For a while,

I was under surveillance at work.

Then I was called back to school.

Under surveillance in the factory,

then called back to resume my classes at school.

At the time, I had my 4 children with me.

I had to leave them at home alone.

I did that till they went to school.

My children are 1 to 2 years apart.

Did you have enough to eat?

At the time, no-one had enough to eat.

That's why he didn't want me to send food anymore.

He told me to find food for the children.

He couldn't imagine

the difficulties we had here.

But he insisted that I didn't send food.

When his health degenerated terribly

and he couldn't stand,

Li Jinghang's wife and others went to visit him.

I couldn't go because of the children.

Imagine, their paternal grandmother threw herself down a well,

and their grandfather was in prison.

I couldn't go.

Other families said:

"Let's go see them and bring them some sustenance."

I couldn't.

I couldn't because of the children.

My family was in Beijing,

my little sister was abroad, my mother looked after the children.

I couldn't tell her about my situation.

They didn't know.

My husband didn't want me to help him

by sending anything.

Just some walnuts for his constipation.

Actually, hunger gnawed at him,

but above all, he wanted me to take care of the children.

That's what he asked me in his letters.

In the last letter he sent me,

they were waiting for an inspection by central government.

"I have to last another 3 days!" he said.

The inspectors were due 3 days later.

The administration said he died on December 27.

When he was in Jiabiangou,

he asked

my little sister to send him from Beijing

books which cost several dozen yuans.

He wanted to acquire knowledge

in physiology and hygiene care.

As he had become too weak,

he'd been sent to work in the infirmary

to look after the sick.

He'd taken this care mission to heart.

But he needed medical knowledge,

hence the books he had requested.

I sent some to him in Jiabiangou.

When he died,

they sent the books back to me.

I still have one left.

It's his writing.

The only writing I have of his.

That is what he says.

He had his convictions.

How did you get that book back?

It was in his things they sent me back when he died.

Did the farm send them back?

Yes.

They sent them back.

I had several children I raised on my own.

All 3 of them had measles.

I took one to the hospital one night.

He also had pneumonia.

I dropped him off at home and took the 2nd.

He had his shot, I brought him home and took the 3rd on my back.

The nurse said to me:

"At this rate, you won't be home before dawn!"

And indeed, I had to run to the factory

where my work was supervised.

Oh, yes!

I left my 3 children at home with measles.

With the fever they had, they couldn't stand up.

I could only put them back in bed when I got home.

They got over the measles and dysentery.

Such young children managed to recover.

I was worried about the one with pneumonia,

but he survived.

I couldn't take any time off.

In my situation, who would have dared give me a day off?

I had to wait till work was over

to take care of my children.

Sometimes I worked till midnight.

It was the time of the Great Leap Forward.

When I got home after midnight,

I'd go to bed, fully clothed.

The children were sleeping in a row.

I'd go to bed without taking my shoes off.

At 4 AM, I'd get up

and give each child a bread roll

before going to work.

That was how we lived.

When he hadn't been there long,

my husband asked me, as if apologizing for the question:

"You must still have some corn flour

or roasted flour we can't get here.

Sometimes I feel like having a little cereal.

If you have too much at home, don't hesitate to make some for me."

That's what he said.

He implied he was short of food without daring to demand it.

When I read it, of course I thought:

He doesn't have enough to eat.

We had 800g of wheat per person per month.

Once the grain was made into flour, I didn't give it to the kids.

I prepared it by roasting it.

For them, I made some corn flour

or another kind of flour that I roasted.

There was a pinch for each child.

Then I sent him his flour.

Initially,

the first 2 times, he received it all.

Then he didn't get anything.

How did I get it to him?

I was told: "If you want it to reach him,

you must hide it in a blanket.

Wrap it inside and don't tell the Post Office."

Or you'll get yelled at!

"Why is your husband an exception? You mustn't send any food!"

They told me so.

That's why I was told to hide it in a parcel.

And it did get to him.

But after that, nothing got to him.

He said there was point sending him anything else.

He couldn't even exchange

ration stamps for food.

He told me not to send any more

and to make sure the children had enough to eat.

That's it.

Later on, we lost touch.

I kept writing, but he didn't answer.

I knew it was critical,

but I didn't lose hope.

I thought that his health had declined temporarily,

but that he'd get better.

When he could no longer stand, he said to me:

"You must get organized and think of the children.

Get married to a worker or a peasant.

Find someone from a good class background

so you don't make our children bear such a burden."

That's what he said.

When did you receive notification of his death?

When I received... when I learned...

He stopped writing

and I knew that was a bad sign,

but there was no other way of getting news.

It was only in late January or early February

that the farm informed us.

The wife of a leader from Zhangchuan United Front

made the journey.

Her husband, much younger than us, had died there in re-education.

When she came back, as she had been there,

she told us about the situation.

Since our husbands were both from Zhangchuan,

she had asked the camp cadres

who confirmed the death certificate had been sent.

She hadn't brought his belongings back,

because his coat, for example,

was worn by a cadre who had gone to look after the sick.

He was supposed to return it when he came back.

We never got it back.

My husband was dead. What use was it to me?

As for the rest of his things,

the camp administration sent them to the station.

We had a receipt to go get them.

They looked a mess.

They were all dirty.

They lived...

in caves,

and their things were black with soot.

His blanket was all burned.

It was totally soiled, covered in blood and pus.

As for the bowl wrapped in the blanket,

it was filthy.

Bran and grain residue were stuck everywhere.

It'd dried on the edges.

I couldn't even say if it was his bowl.

I think it must have been

his bowl and his chamber pot.

They packed it all up and returned it to us.

There was nothing presentable.

There were still a few shirts

that he hadn't wanted to damage at work.

They were there, still clean.

Had the farm sent you notification of his death?

Yes, they'd sent it.

They'd written: "Died of heart failure."

The children knew. No-one went to get the parcel.

We didn't dare to.

We knew that the day the mailman brought

the notice to get the parcel, it wouldn't be a good sign.

We knew that.

The children got down on their knees

and begged the neighbors

to go get the parcel for their mother.

"Our dad must be dead," they said.

The eldest wasn't very big then.

We apprehended that day which finally came.

This eventuality terrified us

and indeed, his things arrived.

We received notification of his death,

but we also knew the organization left a lot to be desired,

so we started hoping they'd made a mistake.

When the luggage arrived,

we were faced with reality.

We had confirmation, irrefutable proof.

Zhang Junqi came back from Jiabiangou.

He had fallen for "individual heroism".

He was accused being a criminal who'd displayed individual heroism,

so they sent him to Jiabiangou.

He managed to hold out and survived.

He came home in 1961.

And it was at the end of 1962

that we started a new family.

He was able to get his teaching job back.

He taught at Tianshui High School no. 1.

In Jiabiangou, he had been abused

and had escaped several times.

But he'd managed to save his skin.

It's because of all this that we were able to start a family.

With all this suffering, we understood each other.

I didn't follow my former husband's recommendations.

He'd told me to marry a worker or a peasant

and that if we had nothing in common, it didn't matter,

because I had to think of our children.

They shouldn't bear the burden of a family from a poor class.

That was his point of view.

But I was well aware

how impossible it was!

How could a worker or a peasant

agree to marry someone like me?

It was unrealistic.

So, I started living with Zhang Junqi.

We used to be colleagues at Tianshui Normal School.

During the Cultural Revolution, they accused him

of being the leader of a clique of conservatives.

During the Revolution,

the rebel groups mistreated him so badly

that he was found half-paralyzed and with high blood pressure.

He lived like that until he died in 1984.

From the Cultural Revolution until 1984?

Until 1984.

He's the father of my 2 youngest children.

When my first husband's health

declined towards the end, he pretty much stopped writing.

He didn't want...

He was afraid we'd worry about him

and above all, that we'd visit him.

He was scared of that.

He never talked about the abuse.

Even towards the end,

he didn't talk about his living conditions over there,

the humiliations and abuse he suffered.

He just said his health wasn't good

and asked me to put all my hopes in the children.

He said not to expect any more of him.

That's what he said.

At the time, he didn't have the strength

to sit up after going to the bathroom.

But he still wrote that letter.

That was the last one.

There was no point writing to him, the letters didn't arrive.

Was December 27 the day he died?

I still wonder about that.

I still wonder...