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Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde estimate that 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in Gulag system's prison camps and colonies when the war started. [65] [66] After the German invasion of Poland that marked the start of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic.
A list of Gulag penal 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]
A People's Tribunal was created in October 1944. This special court pronounced 12,000 death sentences, with over 2,700 eventually being executed. (In contrast, in 1941–1944, the years of active Communist resistance, 357 people were executed for all crimes.)
Needles were made from fishbones saved after meals or dug out from frozen waste piles, pieces of wire sharpened to points, or the teeth of combs. [42] Using wire needles and ink made from the rubber of galoshes, burned to ash and mixed with water and sugar, Sgovio developed a technique for tattooing fellow inmates. [43]
The camp was organized according to the model of the Soviet Gulags; [8] its mere existence was kept in secret [9]. About 1,300 – 1,700 prisoners [2] were brought here without any court verdict. [6] The internees were forced to work in the quarry under minimal living conditions. [2]
The author of the book, Anne Applebaum, has been described as a "historian with a particular expertise in the history of communist and post-communist Europe." [5] Gulag was Applebaum's first widely acclaimed publication, followed by Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 published in 2012 and Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine published in 2017.
On 2 June 1943, the first group of 12 former Soviet POWs, trained by the Germans and dressed in NKVD uniforms, were airdropped in the Komi Republic. On 9 June, the group was however detected (two killed, rest taken prisoner) by real NKVD troops. [1] [2] [3] Soon after this failure, the Germans decided to abandon the operation.
Jews were increasingly targeted beginning in 1938. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II, the camps were massively expanded and became increasingly deadly. [22] At its peak, the Nazi concentration camp system was extensive, with as many as 15,000 camps [23] and at least 715,000 simultaneous internees. [24]