Soviet & Baltic States Killing & Atrocity Centers

Located in Khazakstan on the Prikhankaskaya Flat on the Khaka Lake, Karaganda was the location of a series of Soviet camps and subcamps, notably 'Spassk'. Denoted as Lager 7099, the main camp was denoted as #1 or 7099/1, and prisoners from Germany, most POWs arrived August 9, 1941. The area around Karaganda consists of flatland and hills and is noted for its mining and agriculture, to which the slave labor of the Karaganda camps were supplied. Mining consisted of coal, marble, sand, limestone, clay and other building materials: a large cement plant also still exists.

Part of the Lager System in the Stalin years, it became part of the Gulag system officially in 1941. The main camp in Spassk had as many as 60,000 inmates, although the total for camps in the area was as high as 2.14 million. The Population of the camp was international, consisting mostly of POWs and political prisoners including Russians, Ukrainians, Autrians, Germans, Rumanians, Italians, Poles, Hungarians,Czechs , Slovaks, the French and Japanese. Prisoners were used in abusive slave labor, well-known to the Lagers [Katorgas] often in sub-zero temperatures in an area in which winters range an average temperature of -19°C to -2°C. Laborers died of hypothermia, physical illness including typhoid, beatings, hunger and executions.

In 1941, all German families in Russia were deported and/or assigned to labor camps in the Gulag system. Prisoners in the Karaganda Camps came from various parts of Russia. Upon arrival, prisoners were examined medically and 'categorized' for work in the mines, quarries and agriculture, with the unskilled assigned to medical work in military hospitals. As with many camps in the Gulag, imprisonments lasted beyond WWII into the late 40s and 50s. Spassk is now abandoned, and referred to as "Old Town", although structures are left reminding the area of its brutal past.