Albania Allies of World War II : The
Allies of World War II operated a number of work camps after the war. At the
Yalta Conference in 1945, it was agreed that German
forced labor was to be utilized as reparations. The majority of the camps were in the
Soviet Union, but more than one million Germans were forced to work in French coal-mines and British agriculture, as well as 500,000 in US-run Military Labor Service Units in occupied Germany itself. See
Forced labor of Germans after World War II.
Bulgaria Burma :According to the
New Statesman,
Burmese military government operated, from 1962 to 2011, about 91 labour camps for political prisoners.
China :The anti-communist
Kuomintang operated various camps between 1938 and 1949, including the
Northwestern Youth Labor Camp for young activists and students. :The
Chinese Communist Party has operated many labor camps for some crimes at least since taking power in 1949. Many leaders of
China were put into labor camps after purges, including
Deng Xiaoping and
Liu Shaoqi.
May Seventh Cadre Schools are an example of
Cultural Revolution-era labor camps.
Cuba : Beginning in November 1965, people classified as "against the government" were summoned to work camps referred to as "
Military Units to Aid Production" (UMAP).
Czechoslovakia : After the
communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, many forced labor camps were created. The inmates included
political prisoners,
clergy,
kulaks, Boy Scout leaders and many other groups of people that were considered enemies of the state. About half of the prisoners worked in the
uranium mines. These camps lasted until 1961. : Also between 1950 and 1954 many men were considered "politically unreliable" for
compulsory military service, and were conscripted to labour battalions (Czech:
Pomocné technické prapory (PTP)) instead.
Communist Hungary :Following sentence,
political prisoners were imprisoned. To serve this purpose, a large number of internment camps (e.g., in
Kistarcsa,
Recsk (
Recsk forced labor camp),
Tiszalök,
Kazincbarcika and according to the latest research, in
Bernátkút and
Sajóbábony) were placed under the supervision of the
State Protection Authority. The most notorious of these camps were in Recsk, Kistarcsa, Tiszalök and Kazincbarcika.
Italian Libya : During the colonisation of Libya the Italians deported most of the Libyan population in
Cyrenaica to concentration camps and
used the survivors to build in semi-slave conditions the coastal road and new agricultural projects.
Germany : During
World War II the
Nazis operated several categories of
Arbeitslager (Labor Camps) for different categories of inmates. The largest number of them held Jewish civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries (see
Łapanka) to provide labor in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges or work on farms. By 1944, 19.9% of all workers were foreigners, either civilians or
prisoners of war. :The Nazis
employed many slave laborers. They also operated
concentration camps, some of which provided
free forced labor for industrial and other jobs while others existed purely for the
extermination of their inmates. A notable example is the
Mittelbau-Dora labor camp complex that serviced the production of the
V-2 rocket. See
List of German concentration camps for more. :The Nazi camps played a key role in
the extermination of millions. The phrase ("Work makes one free") has become a symbol of The Holocaust.
Imperial Japan : During the early 20th century, the
Empire of Japan used the forced labor of millions of civilians from conquered countries and prisoners of war, especially during the
Second Sino-Japanese War and the
Pacific War, on projects such as the
Death Railway. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a direct result of the overwork, malnutrition, preventable disease and violence which were commonplace on these projects.
North Korea :North Korea is known to operate six camps with prison-labor colonies for political criminals (
Kwan-li-so). The total number of prisoners in these colonies is 150,000 to 200,000. Once condemned as a political criminal in North Korea, the defendant and his/or her family are incarcerated for life in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact. ::See also:
North Korean prison system Romania Russia and the Soviet Union :
Imperial Russia operated a system of remote
Siberian forced labor camps as part of its regular judicial system, called
katorga. : The
Soviet Union took over the already extensive katorga system and expanded it immensely, eventually organizing the
Gulag to run the camps. In 1954, a year after Stalin's death, the new Soviet government of
Nikita Khrushchev began to release political prisoners and close down the camps. By the end of the 1950s, virtually all "corrective labor camps" were reorganized, mostly into the system of
corrective labor colonies. Officially, the Gulag was terminated by the
MVD order 20 of January 25, 1960. : During the period of
Stalinism, the
Gulag labor camps in the
Soviet Union were officially called "Corrective labor camps". The term "labor colony"; more exactly, "Corrective labor colony", (, abbr.
ИТК), was also in use, most notably the ones for underaged (16 years or younger) convicts and captured
besprizorniki (
street children, literally, "children without family care"). After the reformation of the camps into the Gulag, the term "corrective labor colony" essentially encompassed labor camps.
Russian Federation Sweden : 14 labor camps were operated by the
Swedish state during
World War II. The majority of internees were
communists, but radical
social democrats,
syndicalists,
anarchists,
trade unionists,
anti-fascists and other "unreliable elements" of Swedish society, as well as
German dissidents and deserters from the
Wehrmacht, were also interned. The internees were placed in the labor camps indefinitely, without trial, and without being informed of the accusations made against them. Officially, the camps were called "labor companies" (Swedish:
arbetskompanier). The system was established by the Royal Board of Social Affairs and sanctioned by the
third cabinet of
Per Albin Hansson, a
grand coalition which included all parties represented in the Swedish
Riksdag, with the notable exception of the
Communist Party of Sweden. : After the war, many former camp inmates had difficulty finding a job, since they had been branded as "subversive elements".
Turkey United States :During the
United States occupation of Haiti, the
United States Marine Corps and their
Gendarmerie of Haiti subordinates enforced a
corvée system upon Haitians. The corvée resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Haitians, with
Haitian American academic
Michel-Rolph Trouillot estimating that about 5,500 Haitians died in labor camps. In addition,
Roger Gaillard writes that some Haitians were killed fleeing the camps or if they did not work satisfactorily.
Vietnam Yugoslavia : The
Goli Otokprison camp for political opponents ran from 1946 to 1956. ==21st century==