By late autumn, tens of thousands of middle-aged partizans had been drafted from across the Soviet Union and put to work in the high-radiation areas of the zone until they reached their 25 rem limit. Afterward, they were decontaminated and demobilized and told to sign a pledge of secrecy before being sent back to where they had come from, clutching a small cardboard booklet: the official record of their total accumulated dose. Few regarded this document as accurate.
