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Yertsevo () is a
The Yertsevo labor camp was described in a book entitled '' A World Apart'', written by the eminent Polish writer and philosopher
rural locality
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically describ ...
(a settlement) in Konoshsky District
Konoshsky District () is an administrative district (raion), one of the administrative divisions of Arkhangelsk Oblast, twenty-one in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia.Law #65-5-OZ As a subdivisions of Russia#Municipal divisions, municipal division, it is ...
of Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast ( rus, Архангельская область, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲskəjə ˈobɫəsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It includes the Arctic Ocean, Arctic archipelagos of Franz ...
, Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, located west of Lake Vozhe
Lake Vozhe, also known as Lake Charondskoye (), is a lake in the northern part of Vologda Oblast in Russia. The area of the lake is , and the area of its basin is . The average depth is around (maximum depth is ). Lake Vozhe drains through the ...
. Population:
History
Yertsevo was the location of the notorious Soviet concentration camp of theGulag
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
system before, during, and after World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The Yertsevo Camp Complex, one of over a dozen such complexes shared between Arkhangelsk and Vologda Oblasts, was established by the Soviet State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate (), abbreviated as GPU (), was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from February 1922 to November 1923. It was the immediate successor of the Cheka, and was replaced by the Joint ...
secret service already in the 1930s. Since 1940, the camp was managed by the ''Kargopolsky ITL'' (''Ispravitelno-Trudovoy Lager'') directorate. It was located about from the forest where the prisoners cut lumber all day, year-round, usually up to their waist in snow, emaciated, and always hungry.
Witness accounts confirm that the prisoners could survive in the forest-brigade for no more than two years. The dead were buried in mass graves with wooden tags attached to their legs with a string. Only the fresh young arrivals in the Yertsevo camp were put through the forest ordeal. The work productivity norm set by the prison administration was impossible to reach for many of the victims.
Yertsevo was granted urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...
status in 1960, but was demoted to a rural locality on January 1, 2005.Resolution #864
In literature
The Yertsevo labor camp was described in a book entitled '' A World Apart'', written by the eminent Polish writer and philosopher Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (; May 20, 1919 − July 4, 2000) was a Polish writer, journalist, essayist, World War II underground fighter, and political dissident abroad during the period of Soviet and communist rule. He is best known for writing ...
, camp survivor and, later, political dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...
under the communist system. Captured by the NKVD in early 1940 as a Polish army
The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
soldier soon after the Soviet invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
, Herling-Grudziński spent a year and a half in the Yertsevo camp. Sentenced to five years, but eventually amnestied, he was also imprisoned at the Kargopol labor camp facility.
Prisoners were sent to the bath-house once every month. Some of them self-mutilated themselves at work by cutting off their fingers and rubbing dirt into the wounds in order to be sent to the camp infirmary
Infirmary may refer to:
*Historically, a hospital, especially a small hospital
*A first aid room in a school, prison, or other institution
*A dispensary (an office that dispenses medications)
*A clinic
A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambul ...
, the only escape from death by exhaustion. Herling-Grudziński's account of camp life in the Soviet Gulag preceded Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was ...
's revelations by more than a decade.
Since September 2009 there is a monument to the writer.
See also
*List of Gulag camps
The list below, enumerates the selected sites of the Soviet forced labor camps of the Gulag, known in Russian as the " corrective labor camps", abbreviation: ITL. Most of them served mining, construction, and timber works. It is estimated that for ...
References
Notes
Sources
* {{Authority control Rural localities in Konoshsky District Camps of the Gulag