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Haunting photos from the Memorial tragedy archive

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By on Leningrad


Photo: foto-memorial.org (Courtesy Image)

Some of the photos compiled over decades of work by the Russian organization Memorial International, which was ordered to be “liquidated” by the country’s Supreme Court on December 28.

A skull, possibly unearthed by hungry animals, next to a typical gulag gravestone in Kolyma, in the Russian Far East.

This haunting 1990 photo of human remains near a Soviet labor camp is one of more than 800 images posted online by Memorial International, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the countless innocent people who were suppressed during the Soviet era.

On December 28, the Supreme Court of Russia ordered the closure of Memorial International, citing its alleged failure to mark several social media posts with official “foreign agent” status. In 2016, authorities reported that Memorial had received funds from abroad.

The move has sparked widespread anger in Russia over what many see as an attempt to silence those who speak out against atrocities committed during their country’s Soviet past.

A police building in a Tomsk labor camp in 1934. On the balcony are portraits of Soviet leader Josef Stalin (right) and Feliks Dzerzhinsky, a Polish-Soviet communist and head of the secret police at the origin of mass political assassinations known as the Red Terror. The slogans on the building include the phrase, "It is only in the land of the Soviets that it is possible to reform a person through work."
A police building in a Tomsk labor camp in 1934. On the balcony are portraits of Soviet leader Josef Stalin (right) and Feliks Dzerzhinsky, a Polish-Soviet communist and head of the secret police at the origin of mass political assassinations known as the Red Terror. The slogans on the building include the phrase: “Only in the land of the Soviets is it possible to reform a person through work.”

The photographic archive began with the establishment of Memorial in 1989, when victims of the Soviet regime and their relatives began to donate images to the organization.

The stated purpose of the archives is “to preserve the memory of the tragic pages of our country’s history, to collect historical evidence of state terror and its victims, of resistance to the regime and of the difficult daily life. of the Soviet people. “

A Kazakh Soviet official at a meeting in 1989 to establish a memorial branch in Nur-Sultan (then known as Tselinograd). The man would have shouted: "Return to Moscow with your “Memorial”."
A Kazakh Soviet official at a meeting in 1989 to establish a memorial branch in Nur-Sultan (then known as Tselinograd). The man reportedly shouted: “Go back to Moscow with your ‘Memorial’.”
Soviet police pose with a beluga that they shot down off the island of Vaigach in 1930. A labor camp was set up that year on the island in the Arctic Ocean.
Soviet police pose with a beluga that they shot down off the island of Vaigach in 1930. A labor camp was set up that year on the island in the Arctic Ocean.
A sign in an abandoned labor camp on Stalin's aborted Main Transpolar Railroad project. The sign says,
A sign in an abandoned labor camp on Stalin’s aborted Main Transpolar Railroad project. The sign reads: “The implementation of the fifth five-year plan will be a big step forward towards the transition from socialism to communism”.
Photo of a young woman being investigated in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow in 1949. Her fate is not mentioned in the original caption.
Photo of a young woman being investigated in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow in 1949. Her fate is not mentioned in the original caption.
Skulls of gunshot people believed to have been prisoners in a Krasnoyarsk concentration camp in the 1920s.
Skulls of gunshot people believed to have been prisoners in a Krasnoyarsk concentration camp in the 1920s.
Prisoners carry bricks to Tomsk in the 1930s.
Prisoners carry bricks to Tomsk in the 1930s.
Yulia Odintsova wears the first dress she sewed herself, two years after being released from a labor camp. Odintsova was charged with
Yulia Odintsova wears the first dress she sewed herself, two years after being released from a labor camp. Odintsova was charged with “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation” and survived eight years in various forced labor camps in Siberia before being released in 1952.
Prisoners use a rudimentary rail system to transport logs outside a labor camp in the <a class=Leningrad region in the early 1930s.” src=”https://gdb.rferl.org/08810000-0a00-0242-6bc9-08d9cad56b24_w250_r0_s.jpeg”/>
Prisoners use a rudimentary rail system to transport logs outside a labor camp in the Leningrad region in the early 1930s.
A priest (left) and a peasant after their arrest in 1932 by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, for allegedly opposing the collectivization of agricultural and forestry industries in the northern Komi region.
A priest (left) and a peasant after their arrest in 1932 by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, for allegedly opposing the collectivization of agricultural and forestry industries in the northern Komi region.
A senior NKVD officer keeps a book called The Basics of Leninism in 1932.
A senior NKVD officer keeps a book called The Basics of Leninism in 1932.
A kennel for guard dogs at the Transpolar Mainline forced labor project.
A kennel for guard dogs at the Transpolar Mainline forced labor project.
Guards and other workers at a labor camp enjoy a vacation with their families in Karelia in 1940.
Guards and other workers at a labor camp enjoy a vacation with their families in Karelia in 1940.
Boots in an abandoned labor camp in Kolyma. The photo was taken during an expedition in 2002 to the camp, where prisoners once mined tin and uranium ore.
Boots in an abandoned labor camp in Kolyma. The photo was taken during an expedition in 2002 to the camp, where prisoners once mined tin and uranium ore.

After Memorial’s order to shut down on December 28, the organization issued a statement promising to continue its work, stating, “Memorial is more than an organization, even more than a just public movement. Memorial is the felt need. by the Russians to know the truth about the tragic past of our country and the fate of millions of victims, no one is able to meet this need.

Memorial International is the parent organization of Memorial Human Rights Center. On December 29, a Moscow court also ordered its closure, again due to alleged violations of the “foreign agents” legislation.


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