Jiabiangou
Jiabiangou Labor Camp (Chinese: 夹边沟; pinyin: Jiābiāngōu; literally: "wedged between ditches") is a former farm labor camp (laogai) located in the area under the administration of Jiuquan City in the northwestern desert region of Gansu Province.[1] The camp was in use during the Anti-Rightist Movement in the years from 1957 to 1961.[1] During its operation, it held approximately 3,000 political prisoners, of whom about 2,500 died at Jiabianguo, mostly of starvation.[1][2][3][4]
Jiabiangou was a camp for "re-education through labor"[1][2] that was used to
imprison intellectuals and former government officials that were declared to be "rightist" in the Anti-Rightist Movement of the
Communist Party.[1][2] Some inmates were sent to Jiabiangou on the grounds that they had relatives who had owned a business or held a position in the Kuomintang government.[3] Originally designed as a prison to hold 40 to 50 criminals, the camp was overcrowded with 3,000 political prisoners.[1][2] The camp is located 27 kilometres (17 mi) to the northeast of Jiuquan City,[5] on the edge of the Badain Jaran Desert. As a consequence, agriculture in the camp area was limited to small patches of grassland in an oasis surrounded by salt marshes and desert.[2] Yet, no external food supplies were offered to the prisoners. The result was a famine that started in the fall of 1960.[2] In order to survive, prisoners ate leaves,[2][6] tree barks,[2][6] worms and rats,[2][6] human and animal waste,[3] and flesh from dead inmates.[1][2][6] The bodies of the dead were left unburied on the sand dunes surrounding the camp[2][5] as the surviving prisoners were too weak to bury them.[2] The starvation at Jiabianguo took place during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and the Great Chinese Famine (1959-1962), which is estimated to have caused many millions of excess deaths.[7]
In December 1960, senior officials of the Communist Party learned of the situation in the camp and launched an investigation. As a result, amnesties were issued to the survivors and the camp's remaining population evacuated early in 1961.[2] In October 1961, the government ordered the closure of Jiabiangou as well as a cover-up.[1] Authorities in Gansu[6] assigned a doctor to the fabrication of medical records for every dead inmate stating various natural causes of death, but never mentioning starvation.[1]
Partially fictionalized accounts of firsthand recollections from 13 survivors of the camp have been presented in the book Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival From a Chinese Labor Camp by Yang Xianhui[8] (originally published as "Farewell to Jiabiangou", Chinese: 告别夹边沟; pinyin: Gàobié Jiābiāngōu, translated into English by Wen Huang with support from a 2007 PEN Translation Fund Grant. The book was adapted into Wang Bing's 2010 film The Ditch.[9] Another account based on interviews with survivors is given in The Tragedy at Jiabiangou by Xu Zhao (2008), Laogai Research Foundation Publications (in Chinese).[4]
Remains of the camp, including the graveyards, are unmaintained and heavily guarded to prevent people from visiting. In November 2013, a new monument dictated by families and social workers was quickly destroyed by local authorities. Ai Xiaoming, a professor of Sun Yat-sen University, was briefly detained before released and prevented from photographing in May 2014.[10]
See also
- The Ditch
References
^ abcdefghi Howard W. French (2009): Survivors' Stories From China, New York Times, New York Edition, August 25, 2009, page C1
^ abcdefghijklm Wen Huang (2009): I hope to be remembered as a writer who speaks the truth, guest post at Three Percent - a resource for international literature at the University of Rochester
^ abc Sarah Halzack (2009): Surviving Jiabiangou, The Washington Post, August 23, 2009
^ ab Xu Zhao (2008). The Tragedy at Jiabiangou. Laogai Research Foundation Publications..mw-parser-output cite.citationfont-style:inherit.mw-parser-output qquotes:"""""""'""'".mw-parser-output code.cs1-codecolor:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registrationcolor:#555.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration spanborder-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-errordisplay:none;font-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-errorfont-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-formatfont-size:95%.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-leftpadding-left:0.2em.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-rightpadding-right:0.2em
^ ab James D. Seymour, Richard Anderson (1998): New ghosts, old ghosts: prisons and labor reform camps in China, And East Gate Book, p. 179, footnote B
^ abcde N.N. (2007): The Unknown Gulag, PRI's The World, December 4, 2007
^ D. Gale Johnson (1998). "China's Great Famine: Introductory Remarks". China Economic Review. 9: 103–109. doi:10.1016/S1043-951X(99)80008-X.
^ Xianhui Yang (2009): Woman from Shanghai, published by Pantheon, a division of Random House, Inc.
^ La Biennale di Venezia: The Ditch by Chinese director Wang Bing is the Surprise Film
^ 艾晓明：夹边沟遗址遭破坏令人痛心
Further reading
- Peng Yining: Confessions of death camp cannibals, Global Times, 2009-11-02.
