00:00This is the most terrifying island of the 20th century.
00:02In May 1933, the Soviet government shipped 6,114 people to a barren island in the White Sea.
00:09Then the boat sailed away. No houses. No tools. No food. Not even a single sea to plant.
00:17Thirteen weeks later, they came back to count. 2,200 were still alive.
00:23Nearly 4,000 were gone. On that island, more than 40 people died every single day.
00:28And the most absurd part. Almost none of them had committed any crime.
00:33Many had simply left home without their papers.
00:35They were swept up off the street, loaded onto a truck, and never seen again.
00:39The locals gave the place a name. They called it Cannibal Island.
00:44Now, these people were rounded up in the winter of 1932, when the Soviet Union introduced a new system, internal
00:49passports.
00:50From that day on, walking the streets of Moscow, a police officer could stop you and demand your documents.
00:56If. You couldn't produce them, you were no longer a citizen.
01:00You were a socially harmful element.
01:02The quotas were set from above.
01:04Each city had a number of people to expel every month.
01:07If they couldn't fill the quota, they grabbed people off the street.
01:10The train station, the market, the factory gate.
01:14Documents.
01:15Now.
01:16Left them at home.
01:18Fine.
01:19Get in.
01:20So that batch was a mix of everyone.
01:22People buying groceries.
01:24People coming off the night shift.
01:26Travelers from out of town.
01:28Even factory workers with their union cards.
01:31Even party members carrying their party IDs.
01:34Some were dragged away in slippers.
01:36The train headed east, and kept going.
01:393000 kilometers, all the way to Tomsk, in Siberia.
01:42Then they were transferred onto a barge, drifting 800 kilometers north along the river.
01:47A single trip aboard took days.
01:49The hold was packed to the brim.
01:51People stood pressed against each other, unable even to crouch.
01:55Some died standing there, held upright by the bodies on either.
01:58Side, only collapsing when the boat docked.
02:01Just the journey alone had already peeled off a layer of them.
02:04And then they reached the island.
02:06The island is 3 kilometers long, less than half a kilometer wide.
02:10Walk from one end to the other, and half an hour later you're there.
02:14Just open ground.
02:15Grass.
02:16A few bushes.
02:18No houses.
02:19No boats.
02:21No cooking pots.
02:23Not a single piece of ready firewood.
02:25Not even a dock.
02:276000 people on this patch of bare earth, like a whole school of boarding students dumped here,
02:31then the boat sails off.
02:33Nearby was a small village.
02:34In it lived a young woman named Theophila.
02:37She watched the whole thing from start to finish.
02:40More than 50 years later, she told the world what she had seen.
02:44According to her later testimony, villagers passing by could see the shore black with people.
02:48They threw bread to them from shore.
02:50But the first thing these people had to solve wasn't dinner.
02:53It was surviving.
02:55The night.
02:56It was the middle of May, in Siberia.
02:58Still snowing.
03:00That first night, the weather turned.
03:02Snow, gale winds.
03:04They were still wearing what they had on the day they were arrested.
03:08Someone lit a small fire.
03:09People slept huddled around it.
03:11As they slept, one by one they slipped toward the fire.
03:15By morning they had frozen stiff.
03:17Records say that on the very first day, nearly 300 died.
03:21Then, days later, the authorities delivered 20 tons of black flour.
03:2520 tons sounds impressive.
03:27Split among 6,000 people, that's just over 3 kilograms each.
03:313 kilograms, the smallest sack of flour at the supermarket.
03:35Enough, maybe, to make 20 or 30 flatbreads.
03:38That was a person's entire food supply for a whole summer.
03:41And there were no pots.
03:43No bowls.
03:44No ovens.
03:45Each person got a handful of raw flour.
03:48They knelt by the river, one hand cupping the flour, the other scooping river water, mixing it in their mouths.
03:54Raw flour with raw river.
03:56Water.
03:57Diarrhea swept through them instantly.
04:00People collapsed along the water's edge.
04:02When someone struggled up, the crowd pushed forward.
04:05The guards opened fire.
04:07Bodies lay everywhere.
04:09Flour spilled on the ground.
04:11Those who hadn't been hit crawled over to scoop it up.
04:13At this point, there was no longer any real management on the island.
04:17The guards were only a few dozen men trying to control 6,000.
04:21So they picked the strongest among the exiles, handed them sticks, and let them police each other.
04:26The first thing those men did with their sticks wasn't keep order.
04:29It was collect protection money.
04:31Got bread.
04:32Hand it over.
04:33Got a decent coat.
04:35Take it off.
04:36Clothing was hard currency on the island.
04:39It could be traded for flour.
04:41And so a new sort of justice emerged on the island.
04:44Get stripped first.
04:45Then freeze to death.
04:47Some couldn't take it anymore.
04:49They clutched a piece of wood and waded into the sea.
04:52The water was cold, the currents fierce.
04:55Most.
04:56Never made it halfway.
04:57The guards used them for target practice.
05:00When the island ran out of grass roots and tree bark, and people were desperate enough,
05:04the only thing left in their eyes that counted as food was other people.
05:07Plainly put, the island began to practice cannibalism.
05:16Plainly put one energy.
05:19queby
05:39se
