List of Gulag camps

The list below, enumerates the selected sites of the Soviet forced labor camps (known in Russian as the "corrective labor camps") of the Gulag. Most of them served mining, construction, and timber works. It is estimated that for most of its existence, the Gulag system consisted of over 30,000 camps, divided into three categories according to the number of prisoners held. The largest camps consisted of more than 25,000 prisoners each, medium size camps held from 5,000 to 25,000 inmates, and the smallest, but most numerous labor camps operated with less than 5,000 people each.[1] Even this incomplete list can give a fair idea of the scale of forced labor in the USSR.

List history

Initially, the list of Gulag slave labor camps in the USSR was created in Poland from the personal accounts of labor camp detainees of Polish citizenship. It was compiled by the government of Poland for the purpose of regulation and future financial compensation for World War II victims, and published in a decree of the Council of Ministers of Poland.[2]

Camps listed were not designed specifically for the Poles. Citizens of the USSR and people of other nationalities were also detained there. In total, more than 18 million people were sent to the Gulag from 1929 to 1953.[3]

Camp system operation

There were a number of particular categories of victims that were imprisoned there including:

  1. Any person convicted to a term of imprisonment of more than 3 years (all those convicted to less than three years were to be sent to "corrective labor colonies").
  2. Soviet dissidents. Initially these were dubbed "class enemies" (White Army combatants, members of opposition parties, nobility, etc.). Later, when the full victory of the Revolution was declared and there were supposedly no more "class enemies" left, a more flexible term of the enemy of the people was introduced, as well as an infamous Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) that covered "counter-revolutionary activities".
  3. Soviet combatants returned from captivity. As a rule they were held liable under Article 58.
  4. The Poles. These nationals populated Gulag camps in three major waves, see Polish minority in Soviet Union article.

The so-called prisoners of war were generally imprisoned in special POW camps, which existed independently from the network of corrective labor camps, and were subordinated to a separate administrative apparatus within the NKVD (since 1946: MVD). However, a fair number of POWs ended up in the regular camp system eventually. Unlike Gulag camps, located primarily in remote areas (mostly in Siberia), most of the POW camps after the war were located in the European part of the Soviet Union, where the prisoners worked on restoration of the country's infrastructure destroyed during the war: roads, railways, plants, etc., a topic of a separate article, POW labor in the Soviet Union. Polish citizens and members of other nationalities who were imprisoned at the Soviet forced labour camps during World War II worked also for the Soviet Army, digging trenches, employed in lumber and cement works, airport runway construction, and unloading of transport goods.[4]

Location map of the Soviet Gulag system of concentration camps

Main camp directorates with acronyms

GULAG

Construction works

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKVD camps with Poles.[2]

A

Memorial for the Akmolinsk camp for wives of "traitors of the Motherland" (АЛЖИР)

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

B

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKVD camps,[2] and the Russian Карта ГУЛАГа - Мемориал

C

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

D

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

F

G

I

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

K

L

M

Continued from the Polish Dziennik Ustaw complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

N

O

P

R

S

Continued from the Russian Карта ГУЛАГа - Мемориал listing of NKWD camps,[6] and the Polish Dziennik Ustaw listing of camps.

T

U

V

Y

Z

Continued from the Polish complete listing of NKWD camps with Poles.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "НИПЦ "Мемориал", при содействии фонда Фельтринелли и кафедры картографии географического факультета МГУ". Карта ГУЛАГа (Gulag map). The Memorial Society, Russia. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Rada Ministrów (20 September 2001). Decree of the Council of Ministers regarding places of Soviet detention of Polish nationals. Dz.U.2001.106.1154. ROZPORZĄDZENIE PREZESA RADY MINISTRÓW z dnia 20 września 2001 r. w sprawie określenia miejsc odosobnienia, w których były osadzone osoby narodowości polskiej lub obywatele polscy innych narodowości. (Dz. U. z dnia 29 września 2001 r.) (in Polish)
  3. ↑ Extended Definition: Gulag. From: Anne Applebaum, GULAG: a history.
  4. ↑ А. Kokurin. "Тюремная система. 1934–1960" [The prison system, 1934–1960] (in Russian). Memorial. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
  5. ↑ Information about Dalstroy and SVITL (para #5) Archived 2006-12-09 at the Wayback Machine. (in Russian)
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Виктор ЛОЗИНСКИ. "Archipelago Gulag". Объединенный ученый совет СО РАН по экономическим наукам. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
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