Naftaly Frenkel
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Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel (Нафталий Френкель) (1883- after 1960), Soviet citizen and Chekist (member of the Soviet secret police).
Frenkel is best known for his role in the organization of work in the forced labor camp of the Solovetsky Islands, which is recognized as one of the earliest sites of the Gulag.
Naftaly Frenkel was a Jewish merchant from Turkey, who, together with many other Turkish Jews, moved to Russia after the Russian Revolution. He was a functionary of the NKVD in Odessa in charge of confiscating gold from the wealthier classes. In 1927 he was arrested for swindling the confiscated gold and sent to the islands. There he rose rapidly from prisoner to staff member on the strength of his proposal to the camp administration that they tie inmates' hot food rations to their rate of production, the proposal known as nourishment scale (шкала питания).
His ideas on efficient exploitation of prisoner labor brought him increasingly high positions in the Soviet regime. He was released from prison, gradually promoted to the rank of NKVD General. After a personal meeting with Stalin, he was appointed the Chief of Construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, a forced-labor project. Frenkel also later headed the Baikal Amur Mainline railway construction, also heavily based on forced labor.
Frenkel's personal relationship with Stalin apparently protected him from possible execution during the purge of 1937-1938, when many of his NKVD colleagues were shot. During 1937-1945 he was the head of Chief Directorate of Railroad Construction (ГУЖДС).
He was awarded the Order of Lenin three times and the title Hero of Socialist Labor.
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