Lazar Berenzon

Lazar Berenzon
File:Lazar Berenzon.jpg
Native name	Лазарь Израилевич Берензон
Birth name	Lazar Izrailevich Berenzon
Born	6 March 1898
Died	1 November 1957 (aged 59)
Place of birth	Moscow, Russian Empire
Place of death	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Buried at	Donskoye Cemetery
Allegiance	USSR
Service/branch	NKVD
Years of service	1918–1946
Rank	Major general
Awards	Order of Lenin Order of the Red Banner Twice Order of the Red Banner of Labour Twice Order of the Red Star Medal "For Labour Valour" Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" Honoured Worker of the Worker-Peasant Militia

Major-General Lazar Izrailevich Berenzon (Russian: Ла́зарь Изра́илевич Бе́рензон; 6 March 1898 – 1 November 1957) was a Soviet military commander of the Soviet security services, principally the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or the NKVD. He served with the state's security organs for almost thirty years, rising to the rank of major general and overseeing the NKVD's financial affairs on major prison labour projects, including the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the Baikal–Amur Mainline. Between 1940 and 1941, he was deputy head of the entire Gulag system.

Berenzon was born into a middle-class Jewish family in 1898. After graduating from junior high school, he studied at the Law Department of Moscow State University. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and served during the Russian Civil War until 1920 as a private and later platoon commander. From April 25, 1918, he worked as an accountant-clerk in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. From June 1 to September 1, 1919 Berenzon was the head of the Department of Finance of the NKVD, becoming an inspector of the NKVD's operational and financial issues in 1920. He rose to serve as deputy head of the NKVD's Finance Department between 1921 and 1922, while simultaneously serving as the head of the Cheka's, and then the OGPU's Finance Department from July 28, 1921 to July 10, 1934. From August 27, 1923 to December 1930, Berenzon was head of the Finance Department of the NKVD of the USSR, and on November 16, 1931 he took up the post of head of finance for the OGPU's Belbaltlag project, the system of labour camps assigned to construct the White Sea–Baltic Canal. Berenzon left this role in 1932 and was soon assigned, on November 10, 1932, to work on the financial management of another Stalinist building project, overseeing Bamlag, the system of prison and labour camps working on the construction of the Baikal–Amur Mainline. He returned to head the NKVD's Finance Department from July 10, 1934 to February 9, 1938.

Berenzon was promoted to the rank of division officer on May 15, 1936, and from February 9, 1938 to February 26, 1941 was head of the NKVD's Central Finance and Planning Department. From August 19, 1940 to 1941 he was deputy head of the NKVD's entire prison camp system, known as the Gulag. From February 26, 1941 to April 1943 Berenzon once more served as the head of the Central Finance and Planning Department. On February 22, 1943 he was promoted to Major General of the Quartermaster Service, and from April 1943 to March 14, 1946 he was head of the NKVD's Central Finance Department.

Berenzon was reduced to the reserves in 1946, and retired fully in 1948. He died in Moscow in 1956 and was buried in the Donskoye Cemetery. Over his career he had received the title of Honoured Worker of the Worker-Peasant Militia February 27, 1933; the Order of the Red Star on August 4, 1933; the Order of the Red Banner on November 3, 1944; the Order of Lenin on February 20, 1945; and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour on February 23, 1945.