Yakov Dzhugashvili: Stalin’s Son Who Died in a Nazi Concentration Camp

World History: True Stories of the 20th Century · May 24, 2026 · 17m

Yakov Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, became a Soviet prisoner of war after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and later died inside Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Yakov Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, lived a life marked by tragedy long before the Second World War began. Born in 1907, he lost his mother as an infant and spent fourteen years being raised by her relatives in Georgia while Stalin immersed himself in revolutionary work. When Yakov was finally brought to Moscow in 1921, he found a father who treated him harshly, emotionally and physically…