Part II, Chapter 1, Car Number 7 Summary and Analysis

In Part II, among those being sent to the camp is Tanya Stankovskaya, who is happy to have a bunk on the train. The train car is full of happy voices, as Ginzburg explains that it was the firs time most of them had seen anyone else in two years. On the train, Ginzburg meets a woman named Zinaida Tulub, a Ukrainian historical novelist. As Ginzburg tells Zinaida about herself, Ginzburg is struck by the sound of her own voice and her own life story, as if she were telling the life story of someone else.

On the train, as the women continue to talk to one another, and learn about one another, Ginzburg discovers the unease she has at hearing her own voice. She has been kept in silence and forced to...