It did not save her from the terror. Arrested in 1937, she designed barracks for prisoners and then, with her camp inmates, she built them. Among them were disproportionately large numbers of physicists, mathematicians, engineers and biologists, and almost no historians or philosophers. But the dissidents were only a a few hundred people in a country that then extended over one sixth of the planet. But the clarity of their vision gave them the strength to reject lies and preserved their self-respect without which there is no respect for others and for life in general.
People speak of conscience.
But it seems that conscience is the supreme existential value for only a very few people and, as we see from history, it is easily shrugged off. I do not know the goals of Russia's government today. But in the decades after Sakharov, Russia's people have not increased their happiness, even though he did everything humanly possible to put the country on the path leading to that goal. This is an edited version of a speech given at the Hannah Arendt awards in Germany. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis.