NKVD special camp Nr. 7

NKVD special camp Nr. 7 was a NKVD special camp that operated in Weesow until August 1945 and in Sachsenhausen from August 1945 until the spring of 1950.[1] It was used by the Soviet occupying forces to detain political prisoners.

Museum NKVD special camp Nr. 7, Sachsenhausen

In August 1945, the Special Camp Nr. 7 was moved to Sachsenhausen, the area of the former Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Under the NKVD, Nazi functionaries were held in the camp, as were political prisoners and inmates sentenced by the Soviet Military Tribunal. By 1948, Sachsenhausen, now renamed Special Camp No. 1, was the largest of three special camps in the Soviet occupation zone. The 60,000 people interned over five years included 6,000 German officers transferred from Western Allied camps.[2] Others were Nazi functionaries, anti-Communists and Russians, including Nazi collaborators.

After the fall of communist East Germany it was possible to do excavations in the former camps. In Sachsenhausen the bodies of 12,500 victims were found, mostly children, adolescents and elderly people.[3]

One of the camp's commandants was Roman Rudenko,[4] the Soviet Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

By the time the camp closed in the spring of 1950, at least 12,000 had died of malnutrition and disease.[5]

Inmates

References
  1. Cornelius, Kai (2004). Vom spurlosen Verschwindenlassen zur Benachrichtigungspflicht bei Festnahmen [From disappearance without a trace to the obligation to notify when arrested]. BWV Verlag. p. 126. ISBN 3-8305-1165-5.
  2. Butler, Desmond (17 December 2001). "Ex-Death Camp Tells Story Of Nazi and Soviet Horrors". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
  3. Kinzer, Stephen (24 September 1992). "Germans Find Mass Graves at an Ex-Soviet Camp". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
  4. Utley, Freda (1949). "6. The Nuremberg Judgments". The High Cost of Vengeance. Henry Regnery Company. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
  5. "The Soviet special camp No.7 / No. 1 1945 - 1950". Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2009-04-22.

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