Russian accounts of the liberation of concentration camps?

[hongi]

I've read English accounts of American soldiers liberating Buchenwald and other concentration camps, but I've never read anything about the Russians liberating concentration or extermination camps, and I'm intensely interested in what their experiences were like or how they differed. Unfortunately I can't read Russian, which sort of limits my ability to read any such accounts. Does anyone here know more?

[thejester]

Vassily Grossman was one of the earliest chroniclers of the Holocaust in the East (he himself was Jewish and lost his mother during Operation Barbarossa), and in particular Treblinka. Check out The Hell of Treblinka.

[hongi]

Thanks thejester. I just read the entire thing. Chilling to the bone.

[DarkArk]

I'm having an interesting read so far, a bit melodramatic but that tends to go with holocaust literature, but this stuck out to me:

None of these beings was in any way human. Their distorted brains, hearts, and souls, their words, acts, and habits were like a caricature—a terrible caricature of the qualities, thoughts, feelings, habits, and acts of normal Germans.

Which is entirely wrong. The prison guards were entirely human and German. The true horror of events like the holocaust is that it was "normal" people who followed the orders that killed millions of people. To say that they were not fully human is a cop out from the true lesson of this particular piece of history: people can and will do horrible things when provided with the opportunity.

I could say more but I think I made my point, now to finish this thing.

[Spoonist]

Uhm, wasn't Treblinka deconstructed long before the Soviets came to that area?
*goes googling*
Stopped operations by end of 43, and fully dismantled by autumnd 44 some months before the reoccupation by the Soviets.

Which is entirely wrong. The prison guards were entirely human and German.

The officers and upper staff was german, but lots of the day-to-day operations including things like prison guards it would have lots of local recruits, like Ukrainians who had a conflict with the Polish before and after WWII. IIRC it is not until after the revolt at Treblinka that they staff more of the guards with germans.

The true horror of events like the holocaust is that it was "normal" people who followed the orders that killed millions of people. To say that they were not fully human is a cop out from the true lesson of this particular piece of history: people can and will do horrible things when provided with the opportunity.

It is also telling when you look at the atrocities done by the Soviets in the early reoccupation of Poland. (and elsewhere during Stalin).

[DarkArk]

The officers and upper staff was german, but lots of the day-to-day operations including things like prison guards it would have lots of local recruits, like Ukrainians who had a conflict with the Polish before and after WWII. IIRC it is not until after the revolt at Treblinka that they staff more of the guards with germans.

I wasn't debating that, it was a response to the quote which said they weren't metaphorically. The camp guards also tended to be the people unfit for combat duty and were usually third-rate at best. I've read that was one of the reasons that the guards themselves were so brutal.

It is also telling when you look at the atrocities done by the Soviets in the early reoccupation of Poland.

Quite. The Soviets did pretty much the same thing (cart off large portions of the population to death camps, settle with their own people) to the Baltic States at the end of WWII.

[PeZook]

I wasn't debating that, it was a response to the quote which said they weren't metaphorically. The camp guards also tended to be the people unfit for combat duty and were usually third-rate at best. I've read that was one of the reasons that the guards themselves were so brutal.

Of course, it's an account assembled by Grossman hot after the war. The opportunity to actually study the social and psychological mechanics, interview the guards in detail, etc. only came later.

It should also not be treated as the definitive historical account, naturally.

Quite. The Soviets did pretty much the same thing (cart off large portions of the population to death camps, settle with their own people) to the Baltic States at the end of WWII.

There's a rather major difference between the Gulag and Nazi death camps: the Gulag was exceptionally brutal, but it was primarily a prison system, which in twenty years of operation killed 1.3 million people, or about 10% of the total who passed through it. That's horrific, yes, but compare this to the death toll caused by just one actual extermination camp (Treblinka) - more than a million people in ONE year.

Also, the population of the Baltic states was never deported "in large portion", nor ended up in the Gulag system. They were forcibly deported, yes, their property stolen, etc. but they were resettled to the ass-end of the USSR, not industrially murdered.

Of course you do have actual mass graves and Stalin's purges and NKVD torture houses, and famine so I guess the crux of your argument stands

[Spoonist]

DarkArk, I think we are all on the same page. This is the History forum, nitpicking clarifications is part of the culture, so it is definately nothing personal nor even a debate.
Unintentionally your quote said "The prison guards were entirely human and German. " which grammatically can be read as them being entirely German, just thought I'd clarify that.

[DarkArk]

Of course, it's an account assembled by Grossman hot after the war.

Didn't realize that. Interesting.

There's a rather major difference between the Gulag and Nazi death camps: the Gulag was exceptionally brutal, but it was primarily a prison system, which in twenty years of operation killed 1.3 million people, or about 10% of the total who passed through it. That's horrific, yes, but compare this to the death toll caused by just one actual extermination camp (Treblinka) - more than a million people in ONE year.

This piqued my interest and I did some quick searches on the death rates for both the Gulag and normal German concentration camps.

http://codoh.com/library/document/1028

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulag ... 4_1953.PNG

Somewhere around a 8-10% death rate for German concentration camps seems to be average between 1942-43, though there are some that are much lower. The Gulags are much higher during '42-'43 at around 20%, though I wonder if that's because they used the prisoners as soldiers. Pre-WWII it generally isn't as high (but look at '38), and by the 50's it tapers off significantly.

I still should have said concentration camp in my previous quote since the Soviets did not run death camps, but the two systems do seem quite comparable. The difference being there was the whole other system of extermination going on in Poland that didn't exist in the Soviet Union in the same way.

Of course you do have actual mass graves and Stalin's purges and NKVD torture houses, and famine so I guess the crux of your argument stands

Those statements were also made in response to the author, who often goes off on long tracts about how the Soviets are fighting for freedom (while the US and Brits do nothing the swine). Which when you examine the history really doesn't stand. It's still interesting to get the immediate post-war Soviet point of view though.

which grammatically can be read as them being entirely German, just thought I'd clarify that.

That's fine, English syntax is not known for its simplicity.

[thejester]

I wasn't debating that, it was a response to the quote which said they weren't metaphorically. The camp guards also tended to be the people unfit for combat duty and were usually third-rate at best. I've read that was one of the reasons that the guards themselves were so brutal.

Of course, it's an account assembled by Grossman hot after the war.

Not even - 'The Hell of Treblinka' was first published in late 1944.

[PeZook]

Somewhere around a 8-10% death rate for German concentration camps seems to be average between 1942-43, though there are some that are much lower. The Gulags are much higher during '42-'43 at around 20%, though I wonder if that's because they used the prisoners as soldiers. Pre-WWII it generally isn't as high (but look at '38), and by the 50's it tapers off significantly.

Remember that 1942-1943 was a period of massive collapse of food production in Russia due to obvious reasons, while it is the mere beginning of the murder factory period of German camp operations. IIRC Gulag prisoners were not a significant source of manpower for the military ; Penal batallions were something else entirely.

This is in addition to all the other aspects of the holocaust, which included not just the camps, but direct murder, by the Einsatzgruppen and ordinary troops.

I still should have said concentration camp in my previous quote since the Soviets did not run death camps, but the two systems do seem quite comparable. The difference being there was the whole other system of extermination going on in Poland that didn't exist in the Soviet Union in the same way.

Yes, exactly. Of course brutal and sadistic punishment for dissent and petty crime is still criminal and horrific, but building murder factories is a whole new level entirely.

Those statements were also made in response to the author, who often goes off on long tracts about how the Soviets are fighting for freedom (while the US and Brits do nothing the swine). Which when you examine the history really doesn't stand. It's still interesting to get the immediate post-war Soviet point of view though.

Well, not quite post war, though mid-1944 was basically that for much of Poland. But yeah, the author is a Soviet war correspondent ; All his publications had to have a proper political tone, which is something that must be held in mind when considering Soviet sources, and ESPECIALLY Soviet newspaper articles, moreso than the usual problems with newspapers and eyewitness accounts. Of course, he wouldn't mention any Soviet war crimes at all, because it would tarnish the image of the great and glourious Soviet Red Army!

Even their fiction had to conform to certain norms and would often slide off into tangents on the greatness of socialism, that authors inserted just so that their work would get published.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I don't think it's very appropriate to compare concentration camps where the people were released at the end of their trumped up political sentences with concentration camps where the people were sent to human extermination camps at the end of their non-existent "we took you off the street for being X" "sentences".

[PeZook]

You could even be discharged from the Gulag due to health reasons! Of course, yeah, you had to be so sick you were basically dead, but they just let you go.

[Sea Skimmer]

Remember that 1942-1943 was a period of massive collapse of food production in Russia due to obvious reasons, while it is the mere beginning of the murder factory period of German camp operations. IIRC Gulag prisoners were not a significant source of manpower for the military ; Penal batallions were something else entirely.

I've heard before the Soviets actually outright refused to use gulag labor on key war projects, such as a few emergency railway construction jobs, because they didn't trust them or the work they'd do, and didn't want them near more willing labor. Certainly gulag workers were never used anywhere near the front lines. The main war use was as a result mining for raw materials, which is harsh dangerous work even under the best 1940s conditions. Throw in critical demands for production and a shortage of supplies and food and Siberian conditions and well, kind of surprising anyone was left alive.