around 2,000 men. World War II In 1941, during World War II, Vyazma was the scene of a battle of encirclement. The Soviet 16th, 19th, 20th and 24th armies were surrounded West of the town by the Third and Fourth Panzer Armies. Vyazma was occupied by German forces between 7 October 1941 and 12 March 1943. In October 1941, 11 Jews were shot in the town and two were hanged. In December 1941, 117 Jews were killed in a mass execution perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppe B. The town was heavily damaged in the fighting, then rebuilt after the war. U.S. journalist Quentin Reynolds, of Collier's Weekly, visited Vyazma shortly after the German withdrawal in 1943 and gave an account of the destruction in his book The Curtain Rises (1944), in which he stated that the town's population was reduced from 60,000 to 716, with only three buildings remaining. The Nazis also established two concentration camps in the town, Dulag 184 and Dulag 230. About 80,000 people died there and were buried in mass graves. The victims included Jews, political officers, and POWs. The transfer camp (Dulag No. 184) was established in October 1941 and lasted until March 1943, when the city was liberated by Soviet troops. The camp housed prisoners who had been captured by German soldiers, in particular, conscripted from Zubtsovsky, Rzhevsky, Nelidovsky and other districts of the Tver region, natives of the Smolensk and Arkhangelsk regions, who were reported missing, as well as volunteer militias from Moscow. Prisoners were often not fed or given water. In the winter of 1941–1942, the death rate in the camp was up to 300 people per day. According to SMERSH, there are 5,500 people on the list of dead from wounds in the camp. There are 40 (according to other data, 45) ditches measuring 4×100 meters, in an area equal to about four football fields, where, according to various data, 70 to 80,000 people are buried. As of 2009, the graves house gardens, garages of local residents, a machine-building plant and the Vyazemsky meat-processing plant, in the building of which the camp was housed. In another transit prison in Vyazma (Dulag No. 230) in October 1941, during an inspection conducted by an officer, Abver found 200 Jews and 50 to 60 politruks, a few days later another 40 Jews and 6–8 politruks were found there. They were all shot. In December, 117