While a well-developed historiography exists in relation to forced labour camps in the Soviet Union, the extension of the Gulag system across the Eastern Bloc after 1945 has been the subject of far less scholarly attention to date. although over 400 operational labour camps had been documented across Eastern Europe by the early 1950s. Today, the status of communist-era forced labour camps across the former Eastern Bloc varies. In some cases, there has been growing emphasis on preserving narratives from former prisoners before they pass beyond living memory, while new technologies have provided innovative ways of documenting the camp sites and the voices of those who experienced them. Some former camp sites have been developed as museums or tourist destinations. However, other former camp sites are characterized by silence or ‘un-memory’. Many former labour camp sites also function as sites of contested memory politics, as important questions continue to be asked about the extent to which former East bloc countries have confronted and come to terms with the darker aspects of their communist pasts. This paper will draw on various examples to discuss the diverse histories, legacies and contemporary heritage of these camps.
