Photodocuments from Russian prisoner-of-war camps are extremely rare. How could a prisoner have managed to constantly hide a camera from the guards, take photographs secretly, and then smuggle the films out of the camps unnoticed? Yet, in the 1950s, a series of images emerged from the camps in Jelabuga, Kazan, and Selenodolsk, which impressively document the fate of the inmates from a prisoner’s perspective. For a long time, the origin of the images remained a mystery. Only recently was it finally possible to identify Klaus Sasse as the photographer of these images and persuade him to write down his memories of that time and comment on the pictures. The result is a unique historical document that offers deep insights into cruel, tragic, and grotesque, and sometimes even joyful moments.