In July 1934, the Gulag was officially established by Russia – an administration that managed dozens of concentration camps in the USSR. Almost 6 million Ukrainians passed through them.
Dozens of Gulag concentration camps were for minors. Children of “enemies of the people” were sent there.
Since 1935, all kinds of punishments, even the death penalty, were applied to children from the age of 12.
In total, hundreds of thousands of prisoners died for many reasons: during transits, due to torture, poor nutrition, lack of clothing, hard labour for 16 hours in extremely difficult weather conditions in Siberia and the North, executions by guards (both during uprisings and for no reason), murders by criminals, etc. Slave labour, almost free of charge, for millions of decades was the basis of the Russian economy.
During the so-called Great Terror of 1937–1938, about 200,000 Ukrainians were repressed on absurd charges. More than 120,000 of them were executed.
On May 19, 1938 alone, 563 Ukrainians were killed in the NKVD prisons in Kyiv.
Local authorities received “limits” (i.e., minimum numbers) from Moscow for the execution of thousands of people. Eventually, these limits were increased threefold.
Mass burials of victims of executions, similar to Bykivna, which have not been fully investigated, are almost in all cities of Ukraine.
The next mass executions of Ukrainians took place over several days in June 1941.
The NKVD massively exterminated all “political” prisoners during the retreat. Prisoners were shot, thrown with grenades, stabbed with bayonets, drowned in freight cars, and burned alive.
In total, over the course of several days, more than 22,000 people were killed in prisons of western Ukraine and other regions. Executions took place in Lviv, Zolochiv, Uman, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and many other cities.
