Translated lyrics (deepl.com) - original is in French:
(1) The testimony begins under the Siberian winter /
Minus fifty in the sun, which we rarely see /
Packed into a hutch for about twenty guys /
Suffocating, and dying, a good hundred Zeks, /
Lying on their fetid rotten boards /
Under the harsh, permanent, electric light /
Many succumb like this, their will broken /
They end up in the pit, like simple waste.
(2) The furniture reveals, of this strange structure, /
The organization, perhaps, even the culture /
Bunk beds, three levels of misery /
The least badly installed, upstairs in the cool, air, /
Those who are to the others, the guarantors of Hell /
Of the brutal Common Rights, additional torment /
They cheat, rob or rape, the others they despair /
They alone are those that one day the tyrants exonerate.
(3) On the lower floors, there are the activists /
Who sometimes, for nothing, an altruistic thought /
Find themselves propelled without unnecessary trial /
To the immense Archipelago, to the so disastrous islands /
Where suffering and exhaustion await them /
Humiliations, fatigue, abandonment and nothingness /
But even those of all are not the worst off /
Perhaps they will return in a few decades.
(4) Article 58 had foreseen the case /
Of innocent relations that, to "pass by", /
They are accused of the most vile complicity /
That ad vitam eternam, we send to the secret /
Lest they avenge their deported relatives /
That they have a grudge against the police state /
The Little Father Of The Peoples prefers to see them perish /
Those will never be let out.
(R) And you poor Antifa /
Breaker of swastikas /
Your hammer and sickle /
Proudly you brandish /
Screaming against the concentration camps /
And of social justice, wanting to be a paragon /
You don't know that it was Lenin, your mentor, your hero /
Who meticulously created these abominations.
I read the 900-pages summary a few years ago. I loved it.
Eventually, read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by the same author if you’re afraid of how long it is (3000 pages!).
I wrote and recorded a song about the Archipel: