Eduard Berzin

Eduard Berzin
Эдуард Петрович Берзин
Eduard Berzin in 1935
Director of the Dalstroy
In office
14 November 1931 – 1937
PremierJoseph Stalin
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byKarp Pavlov
Personal details
Born
Eduards Berziņš

19 February September [O.S. 7 February] 1893
Kreis Wolmar, Governorate of Livonia,  Russian Empire (now  Latvia)
Died1 August 1938
Moscow, Soviet Union
NationalitySoviet
Political partyVKP(b)
SpouseElza Mittenberga
ChildrenPyotr, Mirza
Alma materRoyal Academy of the Arts (Berlin)
Awards Russian Order of St. George 4th Class and others

Eduard Petrovich Berzin (Russian: Эдуа́рд Петро́вич Бе́рзин, Latvian: Eduards Bērziņš; 19 February 1894 – 1 August 1938) was a Soviet soldier, Chekist and NKVD officer that set up Dalstroy, which instituted a system of slave-labor camps in Kolyma, North-Eastern Siberia, one of the most brutal Gulag regions, where hundreds of thousands of political prisoners died or were murdered in subsequent decades.