In an account by David Dallin and Boris Nicolaevsky in their 1947 book Forced Labor in Soviet Russia, it was suggested that in the winter of 1933–34 the Dzhurma, ferrying 12,000 prisoners to Ambarchik, got trapped in the Arctic ice and was unable to move on until the spring.Bollinger, p. 65ff. The story alleged that all prisoners died from frost and starvation with later versions indicating that surviving crew members may have resorted to cannibalism to survive. The story was propagated and widely accepted.Tolstoy, p. 16.Rossi, p. 103., February 3, 2003 access date January 24, 2009 If true, this would have been among the worst ship disasters of all time.
