Sandarmokh

The monumental slab at the entrance to the Sandarmokh burial grounds reads: "People! do not kill one another".

Sandarmokh (Сандармох; Karelian: Sandarmoh) is a forest massif 12 km (7.5 mi) from Medvezhyegorsk in the Republic of Karelia where an unknown number, estimated in the thousands, of victims of Stalin's Great Terror were executed. More than 58 nationalities were shot and buried there by the NKVD in 236 communal pits over a 14-month period in 1937 and 1938.[1]

1000 victims were from the Solovki special prison in the White Sea. It was long thought that the barges carrying them were deliberately sunk on the way to the mainland, drowning all the prisoners on board. Others were rounded up during the Great Terror in Karelia,[2] in accordance with quotas for prisoners, 'enemies of the regime', and a variety of "national operations". According to available documentation at least 6,000 were shot and buried at Sandarmokh.[3]

Today Sandarmokh is a memorial to the crimes of Stalin and his regime and since 1998 has been the focus of an international Day of Remembrance on 5 August every year.[4][5]

  1. ^ "Захоронение жертв массовых репрессий (1937–1938 гг.)". Center for State Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Karelia. Republic of Karelia. Archived from the original on 1 September 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  2. ^ "The Great Terror in Karelia: A Chronology" Archived 15 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine. dmitrievaffair.com. Accessed 16 June 2023.
  3. ^ "Half those shot in 1937–1938 ..." Archived 15 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine. dmitrievaffair.com. Accessed 16 June 2023.
  4. ^ "Sandarmoh, 1937–1938" Archived 4 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine heninen.net. Accessed 16 June 2023.
  5. ^ Text about Sandarmokh, translated from "Virtual Museum of the Gulag" Archived 14 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine dmitrievaffair.wordpress.com. Accessed 16 June 2023.