some historians call the soviet gulag a system of death camps,&lt;ref name="joel kotek / pierre rigoulot "gefangenschaft, zwangsarbeit, vernichtung""&gt; joel kotek / pierre rigoulot "gefangenschaft, zwangsarbeit, vernichtung", propyläen 2001&lt;/ref&gt; particularly in post-communist eastern european politics. other historians argue that this trivializes the holocaust (makes the holocaust seems like it was not so bad) because, at least after the war ended, a very large majority of people who entered the gulag left alive.