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Повседневная жизнь работников Колтубанского фильтрационного лагеря
The article analyzes the data of the fund of the Koltuban NKVD’s filtration camp. It operated from early 1942 to autumn 1943 in the west of the Chkalov (Orenburg) region. His task was to filter Soviet soldiers and officers who returned from captivity or who had been in the occupied territory for a long time. The camp was notable for its unfortunate location, poor supply and remoteness from the front line. In the article, according to the methods of social history and in the context of our knowledge of other filtration camps, the everyday life of the camp staff is considered. The identity of the camp commanders, the sources of recruitment of ordinary employees, their number, educational level and gender composition are being clarified. In many ways, the camp workers were close to the inmates: forced mobilization for service, harsh material conditions, the desire to go to the front. High discipline was maintained among privates, but large-scale thefts regularly occurred, mainly carried out by workers in the middle management of the camp. Moscow sent camps the ambiguous instructions about the required attitude of staff towards inmates. Everyday contact between the guards and the inmates was mainly trade and barter. Cases of aggression and cruelty are not reflected in the documents, but there is almost no information about close contacts of camp workers with inmates. The head of the camp constantly clashed with other people involved in the work of the camp: a special department, a commissar and a prosecutor. Tension arose due to the uncertain status of the filtration camps and the unclear priority of the tasks they performed. The special department not only guarded its independence in filtration, but also claimed the main role in the management of the entire camp. The prosecutor tried not only to force himself to be reckoned with, but also sought to go beyond the performance of his functions. The commissar wanted to solve all issues on an equal footing with the head of the camp and make changes to the regime for inmates, which would turn the filtration camp into a kind of reserve military unit. (Refs 14.)