Soviet Killing & Atrocity Centers

In 1928, in the region of Magadan, there were only 500 inhabitants, mostly tribesmen with shamanistic views. The region was known for gold mining in the mines of Kolyma. What happened over the next few years gave rise to the brutal reign of the Stalinist Regime, & so many millions of deaths occurred , that the [Gulag] in the area came to be known as "White Auschwitz". Near the Sea of Okhotsk the town has risen from @ 500 to over 160,000 today. During the years 1930-1950 the Dalstroy Gulag system contain over 160 subcamps & was responsible for what is estimated as many as 60 million deaths, with 12 million just in Kolyma. The charges for imprisonment were varied, but could include no more than the potential of turning against the State.

The first 10 prisoners were brought by ship across the icy bay with the first 'Commandant', Bierzin in 1932. The New Gulag was supposed to replace what had been targeted but failed as a cultural center. At Dalstroy alone, it is estimated that 20,000,000 were executed, imprisoned or brutalized. When the German-Soviet Pact divided Eastern Europe, line of division meant prisoners from Poland, the Balkan States and Romania in addition to Russian Political prisoners filled the GULAGs. In the Dalstroy-Magadan region, the prisoners were used for slave labor in the Kolyma Gold mines, in cruel work in sub-zero temperatures [-98]. Many died of overwork, starvation and hypothermia. Others were executed, gassed, and mass executed in other ways. Prisoners were brought across the Trans-Siberian railway to ships which were crowded some 8-12,000 at at time, and guarded by machine guns and water blasts.

The camps were characterized by the traits of most: starvation, disease, brutality, rape and killings. Jewish Russians were interred there, but not as a particular class, but more as a class of political prisoners. It has been said that Stalin's strong point, and only one was that he knew the value of terror and employed it in camps . Frozen corpses were daily seen .The camp grew from 11,000 in 1932-3 to 138,200 in 1939. Estimates of only 25% survival rates exist,in as many as 60 million killed in a 20 year period in the area. The Commandant Bierzin was tried in Moscow and executed for espionage.* Pavlov and Garanin followed; Pavlov also dismissed for espionage in the paranoia of the Stalinist reign. Notably: in 1937, in March, 200 Trotsky followers were killed after a hunger strike, and the poet Mandelstam died en route to the camp. As late as 1953, some were reported still imprisoned.^1,6