decisions. We turned out to be defenseless. That was the main feeling in those days. Just a few people were deciding our fate, the fate of millions. At the same time, a few people could kill us all. They weren’t maniacs, and they weren’t criminals. They were just ordinary workers at a nuclear power plant. When I understood that, I experienced a very strong shock. Chernobyl opened an abyss, something beyond Kolyma, Auschwitz, the Holocaust. A person with an ax and a bow, or a person with a grenade launcher and gas chambers, can’t kill everyone. But with an atom . . .
