Karlag camp document, 1935: The document stresses that camp inmates were released because they demonstrated themselves as shock workers and disciplined camp inmates.

Photograph of wooden cross taken in forest at Obelusat Cemetery near Lake Stanovoi, Solovki.

Black and white photograph of prisoners shot at NKVD prison, Lonskii street, L'viv. Onlookers gasp looking at the heaped bodies, perhaps looking for missing relatives.

A.A. Merekov sketch, "Despair of a Prisoner" drawn at Kolyma.

Drawing by A.A. Merekov created at Kolyma.

Drawing by Beniamin Shavarshovich Mkrtchan depicting a prisoner leaving a camp with his belongings.

Black and white photograph of a variety of recently unearthed human skulls and bones.

Color sketch from Evfrosiniia Kersnovskaia self-illustrated memoir of a dead body tossed onto a horse-drawn wagon already full of corpses. In the accompanying text, Kersnovskaia recalls that before the war prisoners were usually buried in wooden coffins. However, during the war the number of casualties increased significantly. [These were the deadliest years in Gulag labor camps. ed.] Thus, another method was used which became known as the "Katafalk." She notes that when the inventor of the new method died, he was also buried in the "Katafalk." Unclothed corpses were collected and placed on a wooden vehicle. In 1947, the traditional burial methods reappeared.

Mkrtchan sketch of prisoners forced to extend their work day to dig a grave under the watchful eye of a guard.

Alla Andreeva's color sketch depicts a number of crosses in a cemetery against a backdrop of mountains.