Not an easy read in any sense, but the research gone into this is incredible. An important book for various reasons, I think the most important being that it continues to take the history into the future.

There is ample personal detail about the doctors in this book - how they dealt with camp life and the system. How in this particular evil, they chose to do a little bit of good at personal risk.

But of course, it's also an important portrayal of Stalin's regime and how people, no matter how intelligent and valuable to society, were only suitable for hard physical labor that likely killed them when they happened to speak against the Soviet.

In cases you could see how one human went from a prisoner being the victim of and hating the system, to making their way to a position of comfort - e.g. no longer in the mines or hard labor, and instead to a position of a nurse. Once a nurse, they settled into it, some even becoming doctors later in life, and thus becoming a cog in the system. In a sense, they paid the good deed done to them forward by helping others, but at the same time, the system was not so bad to them anymore so why shake the status quo. I know, it's a bit harsh, but it is what it is.

It never ceases to amaze me how humans alone can make this world a hell on earth. It never ceases to amaze me how every now and again there is one human who seems to garner a mass following, or causes a mass hysteria that transcends generations... and all of it to do horrible things. These "great" leaders who are an immovable tank in the face of the few who will try to fight it... secretly, silently, at great risk, by helping. I mean, mind blowing.

An important and valuable exploration of the role of doctors and nurses within the Gulag system, the first book to explore in depth medicine and health care in the camps. An impressive amount of research has gone into it, based on archive material, interviews and witness statements, practitioner reminiscences and official documents. Many of the health care workers were inmates, but others volunteered to work there. It’s an academic and scholarly work, not for the faint-hearted, and will probably be of less interest to anyone not already familiar with the history of the camps, but I found it riveting – if sometimes repetitive – and it opened up a whole new area of Soviet studies for me.

This book is an extremely academic and well researched look at the workings of labor camp workers, doctors and researchers.

I was interested in the material, but at times, it was hard to get through all the source material and information.

I would recommend to someone very well versed on Soviet history or medicine in communist countries.

Thank you NetGalley and Yale University Press for providing this ARC for a review.

The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death and Medicine in Stalin's Labour Camps by Dan Healey a Canadian and English Slavist.

Dan Healey delves into the history of the atrocities which not only exploited doctors and nurses but prisoners too who had to endure surviving at Stalin's Gulag camp. From 1930 to 1953 and 18.000,000 people passed through and roughly 1,600.000 died through malnutrion, exhaustion, forced labour and preventable diseases.

These times were known as The Great Terror or Purge of of 1936 by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Anyone who publicly disagreed or considered to be a threat to Stalin would either be executed or sent to a Gulag camp even though many were completely innocent. Around 750,000 people were executed during the Great Terror which ended in 1938. More than a million survivors were sent to forced labour camps known as Gulags.

Statistics showed there were 15.3 doctors per 10,00 Gulag prisoners. Dan Healey draws upon records of 35 mid level Gulag medical staff, 19 nurses, of whom were freely hired (this meant that it was there choice to work at Gulag camp), 7 prison feldshers (medical assistants), 5 orderlies, 4 other workers, Pharmacists and lab assistants were excluded in records also dentists and vetinary staff in these collections.

This book opened my eyes to how Stalin and his followers tried to keep atrocities which took place in Gulag camps hidden by ensuring everyone who worked in the hospital camp sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Prisoners and rabbits were used as guinea pigs in the trials of radiation treatment in order to promote spas within the camps. Prisoners and doctors were initially working without any protective clothing or gloves hence exposing themselves to radiation diseases such as cancer, skin burns and cardiovascular.

Some prisoners had to work in mines, timber felling, oil and gas also the introduction of radioactive spas and ended up with bronchial infections, cancer and heart problems due to failures to comply with hygiene standards. Doctors who tried to give respite to prisoners who were overworked and underfed through medical tufta (work rota) were overruled by their superiors.

Doctors even resorted to bartering for medical supplies from vets in order to treat patients as medical supplies were in short supply. Some doctors did not have a conscience as they sent prisoners who were deemed unfit back to hard labour in forests or mines.

NKVD - The secret Police had a lot to do with getting trumped up charges of medical doctors who were in training to become prisoner doctors within gulag camps.

Feldshers - known as medical assistants, Sanchast - known as medical unit, Checkist known as member of secret police agency. Zeks - known as not free prisoners more likely criminals. Sanitary known as hygiene.

Beyond the barbed wire was the point of no return as it was the morgue where the dead from Gulag would be mutilated in the name of science or just throgh pure brutality by their own kind who worked at the morgue.

These memorrabila was gathered by the grown children of ex prisoners who wanted to reveal what went on behind the barbed wire.

Thoroughly researched and supported by interviews, reminiscences, and memoirs, THE GULAG DOCTORS: LIFE, DEATH, AND THE MEDICINE IN STALIN'S LABOUR CAMP opens a new page in the development of the Gulag topic.

Have you ever thought of a Soviet labor camp as an apprenticeship spot or a career booster? Have you ever imagined conferences of medical professionals held amidst the crushing brutality of a mining camp? Have you ever wondered where prisoners with psychiatric disorders went? Dan Healey shatters the fixed, negative image of the Gulag by addressing the understudied topic of medicine and medical workers, free or imprisoned, within the camp system. Arguing with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, an author of a well-known trilogy, Dan Healey shows that medicine, even advanced medicine like psychiatry, did exist, and people practicing it did have human faces.

One of the NKVD's goals in Gulag expansion was exploring the farthest reaches of Russia and searching for helpful fossil fuels. Medical professionals, voluntarily or involuntarily, followed explorers and built hospitals from scratch. Work assignment commissions sent medical institutes' graduates from Leningrad and Moscow to Magadan and Ukhta. Finally, capable prisoners with no prior experience in the medical field could learn the craft on the spot, and some continued their medical careers after the end of their terms.

Dan Healey pays close attention to how doctors and their contributions to the cities' founding are remembered. He interviewed witnesses and witnesses' children, traveled around Russia's far east and north, and talked with historians on the spot. The book THE GULAG DOCTORS conveys a disturbing yet logical message that people's memory may be distorted, some facts suppressed, to fit into the picture suitable for current political discourse.

The author couldn't have chosen a better time for his book's publication, as Russia is closing its archives to foreigners and banning historical societies. I assume, the research isn't meant for an ordinary reader, especially since the first 20-25 percent of the book uses the academic style with its heavy constructions. However, as the narrative progresses and different medical aspects, be it psychiatry or prisoners' exploitation in work with radioactive material, come into focus, the language 'softens,' and one may find himself/herself/themselves unable to put the book down. At least some - in the best case, a deep - knowledge of Soviet history is required to benefit from this seminal research.

A very detailed and intense look into the working lives of the prisoners of the Gulags and the doctors that treated them.

It was interesting to find out what some of the prisoner-doctors were arrested for and what they did to care for their patients during their time serving the sentences.

For reasons nicely explained in another review, I've decided to not send these comments anywhere except the NetGalley site. Essentially, I feel I'm probably not qualified to read this book, or thus, review it, due to a lack of background knowledge. I have a couple excellent broader Gulag books on my shelves, but haven't read them yet, so the most interesting part of this book to me was the introductory material rather than the bulk of the book. I appreciated the many photos. One thing I did not like, which I think came straight from an academic format, was the book repeatedly telling me what the book was going to tell me. It also strengthened my general preference for paper over ebook to an absolute requirement for history books. So I'm grateful to have learned some things from the experience, but nothing that will help sell your book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
So while this was a book that I did not finish, I cannot give it a rating based on that.
The reason I decided it was not for me was because it was more of a complete research book and not quite a story or book you can easily follow.
If you are looking for a cohesive story to follow this is not it.
But for someone who is in research and history then this is for you. It is extremely well researched and documented with information that is no longer able to be accessed.

An academic study of medical workers (including doctors) in the Soviet Gulag. Due to the nature of the sources available, Healey tends to focus on specific workers in each section rather than giving a more comprehensive overview. I found it interesting, although occasionally dry, but it's very firmly focused on a specific aspect of Gulag life rather than the Gulag itself; if I hadn't read a lot of more general works - Anne Applebaum's history of the Gulag, Solzhenitsyn, Varlam Shalamov's Gulag stories, Evgenia Ginzburg's memoirs - I would have been totally adrift. Healey does expect a certain amount of familiarity with that source material also, and doesn't revisit much of it - very little time is devoted to the sections of any of the "famous" memoirs which touch on the medical facilities and personnel, Healey is focused on his own sources and research.

Overall, I would classify this as "interesting but not approachable" - if you're interested in the Gulag and have read a lot about it, this is worth reading and may be interesting to you, particularly given that with the shutdown of Memorial and the closing of archives in Russia this kind of research isn't going to be done again anytime soon, but if you don't have that background with the subject, you're better off reading a more comprehensive history of the Gulag or specific memoirs for a more humanized approach.