Part 2, Chapter 12: Punishment and Reward—Summary

Within the camps, there were means of punishments and rewards designed to encourage prisoners to work and abide by the rules. A prisoner could be placed in a "punishment isolator," known by its Russian acronym ShiZO. Applebaum suggests that these punishment isolators seem to contradict the economic principles of the camps, which demanded productivity. However, they were an everyday part of the life and operation in the camps. They were used for two types of prisoners—those who refused to work and those who committed a camp crime. For those who refused to work, the punishment cells offered an alternative to the exhaustion of work, but it came with its own harsh realities, from shortened rations to the cold, damp solitude in which they were forced to sit all day. Heating in the cells...