Newser: Secret Russian Order Could Be 'Catastrophic' for Historians
A museum studying Soviet prison camps uncovers 2014 directive
A museum studying Soviet prison camps said Friday it has discovered a secret Russian order in 2014 instructing officials to destroy data on prisoners—a move it said "could have catastrophic consequences for studying the history of the camps." Up to 17 million people were sent to the Gulag, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s, and at least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony. Case files of the Gulag prisoners were often destroyed, but their personal data was kept on registration cards, which are still held by police and intelligence officials. Moscow's Gulag History Museum said Friday it has discovered a classified 2014 order that instructed Russian officials to destroy the registration cards of prisoners who had reached the age of 80—which now would include almost all of them, reports the AP.
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Update: Russian museum discovers secret order to destroy Gulag data (The Guardian/AP)
WNU Editor: My blood always boils when I read stories like this one.
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