Lazar Kogan

Lazar Iosifovich Kogan (Russian: Ла́зарь Ио́сифович Ко́ган) (1889—March 3, 1939) was a Soviet secret police (Cheka, OGPU, NKVD) high-ranking functionary,[1] chief of the GULAG (1930-1932), deputy chief of the GULAG (1932-1936).

Lazar Kogan
Ла́зарь Ио́сифович Ко́ган
Head of the GULAG
In office
16 June 1930 – 9 June 1932
Preceded byFedor Ivanovich Eichmans
Succeeded byMatvey Davydovich Berman
Personal details
Born
Lazar Iosifovich Kogan

1889
Elovka, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Yeniseysk Governorate, Russian Empire
Died3 March 1939(1939-03-03) (aged 49–50)
Soviet Union
Cause of deathExecution
CitizenshipSoviet
Political partyCommunist Party of the Soviet Union
Lazar Kogan (left) with his brother Dawid Kogan

Biography

He was the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant. His father was a fur trader. An active participant in the revolutionary movement, at first an anarcho-communist. In 1908, a Kiev military district court sentenced him to death for participating in looting with a gun in his hand. This punishment was then converted into a life sentence.

Kogan joined the Russian Communist Party (b) in 1918.

His major positions include chief of the GULAG (1930-1932), deputy chief of the GULAG (1932-1936), deputy Narkom of Forest Industry (1936-1937).

Until August 1936, the head of the construction of the Belomorsk Baltic Canal measuring 227 kilometers and connecting the Baltic Sea with the White Sea built in 20 months by 170,000 Gulag prisoners. Member of the CEC of the USSR in 1935-1937.

He is mentioned from this period by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the "Gulag Archipelago": "It is time to put six names on the slopes of this channel - the main helpers of Stalin and Yagoda, the main supervisors of Belomor canal, six mercenary killers, after each of them thirty thousand deaths victims: Firin - Berman - Frenkel - Kogan - Rappaport - Zhuk ".

He was arrested on 31 January 1938. While imprisoned, he wrote several repentance letters to Yezhov, then to Beria. He was nonetheless sentenced to death and shot on 3 March 1939. He was rehabilitated in 1956.[2]

Awards

References
  1. "Коган Л.И." at protivpytok.org, citing book: KI Zaleski Who's who in the NKVD. M. .1999. (in Russian)
  2. "Коган Лазарь Иосифович" at hrono.ru, citing book: В.Абрамов. "Евреи в КГБ. Палачи и жертвы." М., Яуза - Эксмо, 2005 (in Russian)
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