RESETTLEMENT CAMPS

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As soon as Lenin had secured power, he established a system of forced labor camps. No one was immune from being incarcerated to these camps. Lenin with the support of the secret police arrested anyone who he deemed as having been a part of the Czar’s inter circle, any opposition group, anyone opposed to his policies, anyone of the elite/wealthy circle, etc.

When Stalin came to power, he embraced the system and expanded it. The entire system of forced labor camps and political gulags was massive. Untold countless numbers of people were incarcerated in this system.

Upon Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941, Stalin exiled/deported all of the ethnic Germans from places like the Volga, Crimea and Caucasus, to Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc. This is more commonly known as ethnic cleansing.

The people were send to locations, which previously had been known as Labor Camps. However, to present a new image the Russians now called them Resettlements and Special Settlements camps.

Efforts to identify the location of these camps have been made. Unfortunately, to date no master list of these camps has been located. Inquires to Russian archives have failed to produce any information. Fortunately, the Ukrainian government has been more transparent and the names and locations of some of the resettlement- special settlement- labor camps have been identified. The list of camps represent the location of where approximately 40 percent, of the interned people who previously had resided in the greater Odessa region were interned after the 1940’s.