How and why the deportation of the Crimean Tatars was carried out. Myths of the Great War

The deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the last year of the Great Patriotic War was a mass eviction of local residents of Crimea to a number of regions of the Uzbek SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Mari ASSR and other republics of the Soviet Union.
This happened immediately after the liberation of the peninsula from the Nazi invaders. The official reason for the action was the criminal assistance of many thousands of Tatars to the occupiers.

Crimean collaborators

The eviction was carried out under the control of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in May 1944. The order to deport the Tatars, allegedly members of the collaborationist groups during the occupation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was signed by Stalin shortly before that, on May 11th. Beria substantiated the reasons:

Desertion of 20 thousand Tatars from the army during the period 1941-1944;
- the unreliability of the Crimean population, especially pronounced in the border areas;
- a threat to the security of the Soviet Union due to collaborationist actions and anti-Soviet sentiments of the Crimean Tatars;
- the deportation of 50 thousand civilians to Germany with the assistance of the Crimean Tatar committees.

In May 1944, the government of the Soviet Union did not yet have all the figures regarding the real situation in the Crimea. After the defeat of Hitler and the calculation of losses, it became known that 85.5 thousand newly minted "slaves" of the Third Reich were actually stolen to Germany only from among the civilian population of Crimea.

Almost 72 thousand were executed with the direct participation of the so-called "Noise". Schuma is an auxiliary police, but in fact - punitive Crimean Tatar battalions subordinate to the Nazis. Of these 72,000, 15,000 communists were brutally tortured in the largest concentration camp in Crimea, the former Krasnoy collective farm.

Main allegations

After the retreat, the Nazis took part of the collaborators with them to Germany. Subsequently, a special SS regiment was formed from among them. The other part (5,381 people) were arrested by the security officers after the liberation of the peninsula. Many weapons were seized during the arrests. The government was afraid of an armed rebellion of the Tatars because of their proximity to Turkey (the latter Hitler hoped to draw into the war with the communists).

According to the research of a Russian scientist, professor of history Oleg Romanko, during the war years, 35,000 Crimean Tatars helped the Nazis in one way or another: they served in the German police, participated in executions, handed over communists, etc. For this, even distant relatives of traitors were supposed to be exiled and confiscate property.

The main argument in favor of the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar population and its return to their historical homeland was that the deportation was actually carried out not on the basis of the real deeds of specific people, but on a national basis.

Even those who did not contribute to the Nazis were sent into exile. At the same time, 15% of Tatar men fought alongside other Soviet citizens in the Red Army. In the partisan detachments, 16% were Tatars. Their families were also deported. Stalin's fears that the Crimean Tatars might succumb to pro-Turkish sentiments, revolt and end up on the side of the enemy were reflected in this mass character.

The government wanted to eliminate the threat from the south as quickly as possible. The eviction was carried out urgently, in freight cars. On the way, many died due to crowding, lack of food and drinking water. In total, about 190 thousand Tatars were deported from Crimea during the war. 191 Tatars died during transportation. Another 16 thousand died in new places of residence from mass starvation in 1946-1947.

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The mass return of the Crimean Tatars began with the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 666 of July 11, 1990. According to it, Crimean Tatars could receive land plots and building materials in Crimea free of charge, but at the same time they could sell previously received land plots with houses in Uzbekistan, so migration in the period before the collapse of the USSR brought Crimean Tatars great economic benefits.

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Finally, in November 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR recognized the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as "illegal and criminal."

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in its Decree No. 493 of September 5, 1967 “On citizens of Tatar nationality living in Crimea” recognized that “after the liberation of Crimea from the Nazi occupation in 1944, the facts of active cooperation with the German invaders of a certain part of the Tatars living in Crimea were unreasonably attributed to the entire Tatar population of Crimea.

Only on April 28, 1956, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Crimean Tatars were released from administrative supervision and the special settlement regime, but without the right to return property and return to Crimea.

The bulk of able-bodied migrants were sent to work both in agriculture and in industry and construction. The shortage of labor during the war was felt almost everywhere, especially in the collection and processing of cotton. The work that the special settlers received, as a rule, was hard, and often dangerous to life and health. More than a thousand of them, for example, worked at the ozocerite mine in the village of Shorsu, Fergana region. Crimean Tatars were sent to build the Nizhne-Bozsu and Farhad hydroelectric power stations, they worked on the repair of the Tashkent railway, at industrial plants, and chemical enterprises. Living conditions in many areas were unsatisfactory. People were housed in stables, sheds, basements and other unequipped premises. Unaccustomed climate, constant malnutrition led to the spread of malaria and gastrointestinal diseases. Only from June to December 1944, 10.1 thousand special settlers from the Crimea died from illness and exhaustion in Uzbekistan, that is, about 7% of the number of arrivals.

Igor Mikhalev/RIA Novosti

“It is interesting that initially Uzbekistan agreed to receive only 70 thousand Crimean Tatars, but later it had to “reconsider” its plans and agree with the figure of 180 thousand people, for which purpose a department of special settlements was organized in the republican NKVD, which was supposed to prepare 359 special settlements and 97 commandant's offices. And although the time of the resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, in comparison with other peoples, was relatively comfortable, however, the data on morbidity and high mortality speak quite expressively about what they had to do in a new place: about 16 thousand back in 1944 and about 13 thousand in 1945,” says Pavel Polyan’s book “Not of my own free will…”

The transfer of 71 trains to the east took about 20 days. In a telegram dated June 8, 1944, addressed to Lavrentiy Beria, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Uzbek SSR Yuldash Babadzhanov reported: “I report on the completion of the reception of echelons and the resettlement of special settlers of the Crimean Tatars in the Uzbek SSR ... In total, special settlers of families were accepted and settled in Uzbekistan - 33,775, people - 151,529, including men - 27,558, women - 55,684, children - 68,287. 191 people died on the way in all echelons. Settled by regions: Tashkent - 56,362 people. Samarkand - 31,540, Andijan - 19,630, Fergana - 19,630, Namangan - 13,804, Kashka-Darya - 10,171, Bukhara - 3983 people. The resettlement was mainly carried out in state farms, collective farms and industrial enterprises, in empty premises and due to the compaction of local residents ... The unloading of the trains and the resettlement of the special settlers took place in an organized manner. There were no incidents."

A group of Crimean Tatars who arbitrarily seized land on the collective farm "Ukraine" in the Bakhchisarai region, 1989

Valery Shustov/RIA Novosti

After the eviction of the Crimean Tatars, according to the commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, there remained: 25561 houses, 18736 household plots, 15000 outbuildings, cattle and birds: 10700 cows, 886 young animals, 4,139 calves, 44,000 sheep and goats, 4,450 horses. 43 207 pcs. Total dishes and other various products 420,000.

As indicated in the book by Natalia Kiseleva and Andrey Malgin "Ethno-political processes in the Crimea: historical experience, modern problems and prospects for their solution", special orders were issued along the fronts for the dismissal of the Crimean Tatars from the Red Army, who were also sent to a special settlement. The rank and file and sergeants, most of the junior officers, underwent this fate. Only senior officers, as a rule, did not leave the army and continued to be at the front until the end of the war.

Taking into account the former military personnel, the total number of migrants - the Crimean Tatars - was over 200 thousand people.

Viktor Chernov/RIA Novosti

Following the Tatars, on the basis of GKO resolution No. 5984ss of June 2, 1944, 15,040 Greeks, 12,422 Bulgarians, 9,621 Armenians, 1,119 Germans, Italians and Romanians, 105 Turks, 16 Iranians, etc. were evicted from the Crimea to the republics of Central Asia and regions of the RSFSR. (total 41,854 people). In total, by the end of 1945, according to the NKVD of the USSR, there were 967,085 families in the special settlement in the amount of 2,342,506 people.

“In addition, the Crimean military commissariats mobilized 6,000 Tatars of draft age, who are sent to Guryev, Rybinsk, Kuibyshev according to the orders of the Red Army Head Office of Provisions. Of the 8,000 special settlers sent on your instructions to the Moskvugol trust, 5,000 are also Tatars. In total, 191,044 persons of Tatar nationality were taken out of the Crimean ASSR,- also noted in the report of Kobulov and Serov.

As the leaders of the operation noted in their report, during the eviction, 1,137 "anti-Soviet elements" were arrested, for a total of 5,989 people. 10 mortars, 173 machine guns, 192 machine guns, 2,650 rifles, 46,603 kg of ammunition were seized.

Igor Mikhalev/RIA Novosti

On May 20, State Security Commissars Kobulov and Serov reported to Beria: “The operation to evict the Crimean Tatars, which began on May 18 on your instructions, ended today at 4 p.m. 180,014 people were evicted, loaded into 67 echelons, of which 63 echelons of 173,287 people were sent to their destination, the remaining 4 echelons will be sent today.”

As in the case of the eviction of the Kalmyks, when the measures taken against the people did not affect some high-ranking representatives, for example, General Oka Gorodovikov, a number of Crimean Tatars, who managed to become famous on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, escaped deportation. First of all, we are talking, of course, about the outstanding military pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1943, 1945) Ahmet Khan Sultan and his classmate Emir Usein Chalbash.

“On the eve of the liberation of Crimea by the Soviet troops, the Germans tried to steal my father to work in Germany, but he fled, then hid, and on May 18, 1944, the NKVD troops expelled him,” TASS quoted Crimean Tatar Rustem Emirov as saying. “They didn’t explain anything to anyone, for what and why they were being expelled. From the mother’s side and from the father’s side during the Great Patriotic War, she and my uncles went missing, where they are buried is still unknown.”

From the book of the historian Kurtiev: “According to the official documents of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, the material and medical support along the route and in the places of special settlements was sufficient. However, in reality, according to the recollections of the deported Crimean Tatars themselves, living conditions, food, clothing, medical care, etc. were horrendous, which caused mass deaths of people in special settlements.

It was so crowded that people could not stretch their legs. Fires were lit at stops, and water was sought. The trains left without notice. Someone, having taken water, managed to return, run to the car, someone did not and disappeared without a trace. Those who died on the road were thrown out along the train, not allowing them to be buried.

Igor Mikhalev/RIA Novosti

In turn, Beria sent a telegram to Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, in which he reported on the progress of the deportation. Here is what followed from the text: “The NKVD reports that today, May 18, an operation has begun to evict the Crimean Tatars. 90,000 people have already been brought to the railway loading stations, 48,400 people have been loaded and sent to the places of new resettlement, and 25 echelons are being loaded. There were no incidents during the operation. The operation continues."

Bogdan Kobulov and Ivan Serov telegraphed their boss Lavrenty Beria about the progress of the operation.

“In pursuance of your instruction, today, on May 18 of this year, at dawn, an operation was launched to evict the Crimean Tatars. As of 20:00, 90,000 people were brought to the loading stations, of which 17 echelons were loaded and 48,000 people were sent to their destinations. There are 25 echelons under loading. There were no incidents during the operation. The operation continues,” the security officers wrote.

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“During the eviction, our train stood for a long time at the Seitler station,” recalled Dzhafer Kurtseitov. - Apparently, he was one of the last, so he was slaughtered by people who were caught in different places. War invalids were thrown into it, who were drawn to their native villages after the liberation of Crimea, like our uncle Benseit Yagyaev, who served in the aviation, who arrived from the hospital on May 17, and on May 18, together with everyone else, was thrown into the cattle car of our train.

As Osmanova recalled, the soldiers explained to some that they were not being taken to be shot, but would be evicted. But their family was evicted so cruelly that they were not even allowed to take anything with them, except for one bag of wheat. All the way they ate this wheat.

“On May 18, 1944, at dawn, a strong knock woke up the whole family, this is the Crimean Tatar Ninel Osmanova. - Mom did not have time to jump out of bed, as the doors swung open - and Soviet soldiers with machine guns in their hands ordered to go out into the yard. Mom began to collect crying children, and soldiers with rifles began to push us out of the house. Mom thought we were being shot. When we went out into the yard, there was a cart, we were seated and taken outside the village to a hollow. Our fellow villagers with their families were already sitting there.”

“In conditions of extreme insufficiency of food, drinking water, lack of sanitary conditions, people fell ill, died of hunger and mass infectious diseases. In the first year, my younger sister Shekure Ibragimova died of starvation and inhuman conditions, she was 6 years old. In September 1944, I fell ill with malaria,” Urie Borsaitova shared her experience.

“People died of starvation, illness, lack of medical care, suffered mental suffering along the way,” recalled Crimean Tatar Urie Borsaitova, quoted by krymr.com, in 2009. She and her numerous relatives were taken away from the station in Evpatoria. — The walls and floors of the cattle cars were dirty and smelled of manure. Up to 45-50 people or 8-10 families of Crimean Tatars were placed in one car. The echelon after 19 days of travel arrived at the Hungry Steppe station. We were sent to the place of settlement - the collective farm of Kirov, Mirzachul district, Tashkent region, UzSSR. Our family was settled in an old dugout without windows and doors, the roof was made of reeds.”

“Our eviction was carefully prepared in advance so that even neighbors and relatives would not end up in the same destination. So, already when boarding trucks and at the railway station in the cars, everyone was thoroughly mixed with different villages. Even our own grandmother was placed in another car, saying that they would meet on the spot, ”witnesses said.

Viktor Chernov/RIA Novosti

Son of World War I veteran Jafer Kurtseitov, who was a teenager at the time of deportation: “Accustomed to executions and destruction during the German occupation, people thought of the worst. They took the Koran with them and prayed. After all, yesterday everyone was happy to meet the soldiers of the liberators, treated them to what they had.

Let us again turn to the work of local historian Kurtiev “Deportation. How it was”: “Old men, women and children, pushed with butts, were herded into dirty freight cars, the windows of which were shrouded in barbed wire. Inside the wagons were equipped with 2-tiered wooden bunks. There were no toilets or water."

In case of disobedience, people are beaten without ceremony. Armed resistance, as in other similar operations, ended with the liquidation of the "rebel" on the spot.

A fighter of the 222nd separate rifle battalion of the 25th rifle brigade of the NKVD troops, Alexei Vesnin, who was 19 years old at the time of the operation, subsequently wrote his memoirs about the events, published under the title "Following the order."

“At four in the morning, they started the operation. We went into the houses, raised the hosts from the bed and announced: “In the name of Soviet power! For treason, you are deported to other regions of the Soviet Union. People perceived this team with humble humility, ”said Vesnin.

Said Tsarnaev/RIA Novosti

The first batches of people are collected outside the villages, where trucks have already been brought. Women, old people and children, who barely had time to get dressed and hastily collect the most necessary things, are put in a truck and taken to the nearest railway stations. Trains are waiting there, surrounded by armed fighters.

Said Tsarnaev/RIA Novosti

It should be noted that officially - according to the GKO decree of May 11, special settlers were allowed to take with them personal belongings, clothes, household equipment, dishes and food in the amount of up to 500 kg per family. Who is deliberately distorting the facts here? Most likely, as usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Those who survived the deportation often said that in reality the authorities did not always follow their own decrees ...

However, the former NKVD officer Vesnin cited somewhat different information. According to him, they still had two hours for the training, and each family was allowed to take 200 kg of cargo with them.

Crimean Tatars are subject to even harsher conditions than other deported peoples. So, no more than 10-15 minutes are allotted for the fees. It is allowed to take bundles weighing no more than 10-15 kg with you.

Sleepy citizens are forced to open doors and let intruders into their homes. Officers cross the threshold, accompanied by soldiers.

"In the name of the Soviet government, for treason to the Motherland, you are being evicted to other regions of the Soviet Union,"- with such a phrase, according to the historian Kurtiev, the head of each group invariably "welcomed" the astonished owners of the dwelling.

This is how Alexei Vesnin, a fighter of the 222nd separate rifle battalion of the 25th rifle brigade of the NKVD troops, recalled the beginning of the operation, whom in his work “Deportation. How it was,” historian Kurtiev quoted: “We walked for several hours and early in the morning on May 18 we reached the village of Oisul in the steppe. Around the village put up 6 light machine guns.

The operation to expel Crimean Tatars from Crimea has begun! Groups of NKVD officers and soldiers that have accumulated in settlements go home and hit the doors and windows with rifle butts to wake people up.

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The word to the Crimean Tatar historian Refat Kurtiev: “19 thousand people assisting the NKVD, 30 thousand employees of the NKVD and the NKGB were involved in the action. The operatives were assisted by about 100 thousand servicemen of the Soviet army. For the mobile execution of the order, troikas were formed from the attracted military resources: three servicemen were assigned to one operative. Thus, for one Crimean Tatar, whether he was an old man or a baby, there were more than one punisher.

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Some researchers assure that in some settlements the Chekists and soldiers began to implement the eviction late in the evening of May 17 and diligently "worked" all night. Allegedly, in Simferopol, the first places of the operation were Grazhdanskaya Street and the nearby streets of Krasnaya Gorka. Then came the turn of the inhabitants of Simeiz. One of the sources gives a story about the deportation in the village of Ak-Bash, where the NKVD and NKGB officers arrived in five trucks.

“Who fries meat, who fries potatoes, who pasties. And the soldiers are so happy, during the three years of the war, each of them missed home-cooked food, ”sabe Useinova, a local resident, recalled.

At 7 pm, well-fed Red Army soldiers "scattered" around the village, driving people out into the street with butts, and Sabe's husband stood with his hands up. Then they drove everyone to the village square, loaded them into cars, and until dawn on May 18 they were not allowed to leave them. Well, then everything went on, as everywhere else.

In the autumn of 1917, the Crimean Tatar nationalists united in the Milli Firka party fiercely fought against the Red Guard detachments trying to establish Soviet power in the Crimea. Perhaps the reasons for antagonism should be sought in the revolutionary events too. You can read about how the power of the Soviets was proclaimed on the peninsula in Gazety.Ru.

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Kurtiev: “When thousands of sons of the Crimean Tatar people fought and died on the fronts of the Patriotic War and in the occupation, Crimea still smelled of the burning of burned villages, the tears of mothers did not dry for the dead, tortured, shot, burned and driven away children to Germany, when there were still battles for the complete liberation of the Crimea from the Nazis, the Soviet punishers were preparing the deportation of the Crimean Tatars.

The Crimean Tatar local historian Refat Kurtiev, who devoted many years to studying the problem, noted that a significant part of the population actually fought the Germans in the same way as other peoples of the USSR. “The war came to the Crimean peninsula on June 22, 1941 at 03:13 with the bombing of Sevastopol. The German army, after 3 months of battles with the Soviet army, approached Perekop. Soon the Crimea was occupied (October 18, 1941-May 14, 1944), the researcher wrote in his book Deportation. How it was". – During this period, the Crimean Tatar people fully experienced all the horrors of the war: 40,000 went to the front, the Nazis burned more than 80 Crimean Tatar villages, 20,000 young people were driven to Germany (2,300 of them were in German camps). By the time of the liberation of Crimea, 598 partisans of the Crimean Tatars were fighting the fascist invaders in the forests.

Igor Mikhalev/RIA Novosti

“The deportations caused significant damage to the country’s economy: the work of many enterprises was suspended, entire agricultural areas fell into disrepair, the traditions of transhumance, terraced farming, etc. were lost. The psychology of the deported peoples, their attitude to the socialist system, underwent a radical change, international ties collapsed”, - noted the historian Nikolai Bugay in his book "Joseph Stalin - Lavrenty Beria:" They must be deported.

Already after the Great Patriotic War, in March 1949, the power structures of the USSR began to implement Operation Surf to deport residents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who were found to have links with the nationalist underground. Nearly 100,000 anti-Soviet citizens of the Baltic states were forcibly evicted from their usual places to Siberia.

Gazeta.Ru wrote about these events in.

Said Tsarnaev/RIA Novosti

At the end of December last year, 75 years passed since the forced deportation of the Kalmyks, who were severely punished by the Soviet authorities for the collaborationism of individual representatives of the people during the German occupation. Over 90,000 people were put into railway cattle cars in a few hours and sent from Kalmykia to Siberia and Central Asia. By the summer of 1944, the total number of evicted people had grown to 120,000 due to Kalmyks from other regions and the military.

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The security services began to expel the Crimean Tatars from their homes at dawn on May 18. In the meantime, we have a night, we remember other peoples who shared the same fate a little earlier.

In the late stages of the Great Patriotic War, in 1943-1944, forced deportations of entire peoples to remote areas of the Soviet Union occurred one after another. Previously, Gazeta.Ru, as Karachays were expelled from their original habitats in the North Caucasus on charges of collaborationism.

Evgeniy Khaldey/RIA Novosti

The official view of the events of 75 years ago is currently undergoing serious adjustments. So, in early May, it was announced that a section on the collaborationism of the Crimean Tatars during the Nazi occupation would be cut out of the textbook on the history of Crimea for grade 10. The Republican Ministry of Education and Science explained that the corresponding decision was made "in order to relieve social tension." Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrenty Beria, Matvey Shkiryatov (front row from right to left), Georgy Malenkov and Andrei Zhdanov (second row from right to left) at a joint meeting of the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities of the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, 1938

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On May 13, a commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR arrived in Crimea to organize the reception of household property, livestock, and agricultural products from special settlers. To help the members of the commission, local authorities allocated up to 20 thousand people from among the party and economic assets of cities and regions for practical work on accounting and protecting the property left behind. The commission developed an instruction containing a list and the number of essential items that a special settler could take with him, although in practice the requirements of the instruction were often not followed. Dozens of freight trains were formed at railway stations. Convoys were drawn to areas densely populated by Crimean Tatars for the subsequent transportation of the evicted to the places of landing in trains. Parts of the internal troops were dispersed in settlements to organize the dispatch of people and the subsequent cleansing of the territory. In the mountainous forest area, SMERSH operatives completed the last searches. According to Djilas, in 1943 or 1944, Stalin complained to Tito that US President Franklin Roosevelt was demanding that he create a kind of enclave of the Jewish diaspora in Crimea in exchange for Lend-Lease supplies. Allegedly, without appropriate guarantees from Stalin on this issue, the Americans even refused to open a second front. In general, the head of the Soviet state had no choice but to liberate the Crimea for the Jews, for which it was necessary to evict the Tatars. It is alleged that the leaders of the United States and the USSR seriously discussed the candidacy of the head of the future territorial entity. Allegedly, Roosevelt insisted on Solomon Mikhoels, while Stalin offered his longtime and faithful ally Lazar Kaganovich for this role.

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Considering the foregoing, the State Defense Committee decided:

“All Tatars should be evicted from the territory of Crimea and settled permanently as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR. The eviction is to be assigned to the NKVD of the USSR. Oblige the NKVD of the USSR (comrade Beria) to complete the eviction of the Crimean Tatars by June 1, 1944.

It sounded like a sentence!

“During the Patriotic War, many Crimean Tatars betrayed their homeland, deserted from the units of the Red Army defending the Crimea, and went over to the side of the enemy, joined the volunteer Tatar military units formed by the Germans, who fought against the Red Army; during the occupation of the Crimea by the Nazi troops, participating in the German punitive detachments, the Crimean Tatars were especially distinguished by their brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German invaders in organizing the forcible deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery and the mass extermination of Soviet people, - it was said in the GKO resolution signed by its chairman Joseph Stalin. - The Crimean Tatars actively cooperated with the German occupation authorities, participating in the so-called “Tatar national committees” organized by German intelligence and were widely used by the Germans to send spies and saboteurs to the rear of the Red Army. The “Tatar National Committees”, in which the White Guard-Tatar emigrants played the main role, with the support of the Crimean Tatars, directed their activities to the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of Crimea and carried out work to prepare for the forcible secession of Crimea from the Soviet Union with the help of the German armed forces.

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As indicated in the collection of the Russian historian, the largest specialist in deportations in the USSR Nikolai Bugay "Joseph Stalin - Lavrentiy Beria:" They must be deported", events in the Crimean ASSR developed in a difficult environment. “The active actions of nationalist elements contributed to the fact that during the war years, many of the Crimean Tatars were in the service of the enemy, supported him, although a significant part of the Tatar population was loyal to the Soviet government,” the book says. - Measures aimed at preventing hostile actions of nationalists, according to government services, were not enough, and on May 11, 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted resolution No. 5859ss on the eviction of the Crimean Tatars. The commissioners of state security Bogdan Kobulov and Ivan Serov were appointed the leaders of the operation.

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According to the NKVD, sent to the head of the Soviet state, Joseph Stalin, 183,155 people were evicted. Some Crimean Tatar organizations give a fundamentally different figure - 423,100 inhabitants, of which 377,300 were women and children. According to various estimates, as a result of the deportation, from 34 to almost 200 thousand people died. After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as a result of the abolition of the Crimean ASSR on June 30, 1945, the Crimean region was formed.

On May 18, 1944, the forced expulsion of the Crimean Tatar population of the Crimean ASSR to Central Asia and remote regions of the RSFSR began by the NKVD and the NKGB. As in the case of the deportation of other peoples accused of collaborating with the German occupiers and collaborating during the Great Patriotic War, the operation was developed and personally supervised by one of the leaders of the Soviet special services, Lavrenty Beria. Gazeta.Ru reproduces the tragic page of the Stalin era in historical online.

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The deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the last year of the Great Patriotic War was a mass eviction of local residents of Crimea to a number of regions of the Uzbek SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Mari ASSR and other republics of the Soviet Union. This happened immediately after the liberation of the peninsula from the Nazi invaders. The official reason for the action was the criminal assistance of many thousands of Tatars to the occupiers.

Crimean collaborators

Desertion of 20 thousand Tatars from the army during the period 1941-1944; - the unreliability of the Crimean population, especially pronounced in the border areas; - a threat to the security of the Soviet Union due to collaborationist actions and anti-Soviet sentiments of the Crimean Tatars; - the deportation of 50 thousand civilians to Germany with the assistance of the Crimean Tatar committees.

Almost 72 thousand were executed with the direct participation of the so-called "Noise". Schuma - auxiliary police, but in fact - punitive Crimean Tatar battalions, subordinate to the Nazis. Of these 72,000, 15,000 communists were brutally tortured in the largest concentration camp in Crimea, the former Krasnoy collective farm.

Main allegations

I have a neighbor. Crimean partisan. He went to the mountains in 1943, when he was 16 years old. This document will tell about it better than me.

From the stories of Grigory Vasilyevich:
"In 1942, the Tatars wanted to slaughter the entire Russian population of Yalta. Then the Russians bowed to the Germans so that they would protect them. The Germans gave the command - do not touch ..."
"I don't know a single Tatar who would be in the partisans..."
"On May 18, they told me that I would take the Tatars to Simferopol. I would do it again today ...."
“The Tatars who had taken refuge after the eviction through the forests began to attack individual soldiers. The soldier would go to the bushes to take a pee, and the next day they found him - hung by his legs, and a penis in his mouth ... Then the troops were removed from under Sevastopol and they passed through the chain all the forests of the Crimea. Whoever they found, they shot. The conversation was short. And the sense was great ... "

In general, everything happened like this:

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, Crimean Tatars made up less than one-fifth of the population of the peninsula. Here are the 1939 census data:
Russians 558481 - 49.6%
Ukrainians 154120 - 13.7%
Tatars 218179 - 19.4%

Nevertheless, the Tatar minority was in no way infringed on their rights in relation to the Russian-speaking population. Rather the opposite. The official languages of the Crimean ASSR were Russian and Tatar. The basis of the administrative division of the Autonomous Republic was the national principle. In 1930, national village councils were created: Russian - 207, Tatar - 144, German - 37, Jewish - 14, Bulgarian - 9, Greek - 8, Ukrainian - 3, Armenian and Estonian - 2 each. In addition, national districts were organized . In all schools, children of national minorities were taught in their native language.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War, many Crimean Tatars were drafted into the Red Army. However, their service was short-lived. As soon as the front approached the Crimea, desertion and surrender among them took on a massive character. It became obvious that the Crimean Tatars were waiting for the arrival of the German army and did not want to fight. The Germans, using the current situation, scattered leaflets from airplanes with promises to “finally resolve the issue of their independence” - of course, in the form of a protectorate within the German Empire.

From among the Tatars who had surrendered in the Ukraine and other fronts, cadres of agents were trained, who were thrown into the Crimea to strengthen anti-Soviet, defeatist and pro-fascist agitation. As a result, units of the Red Army, manned by Crimean Tatars, turned out to be unfit for combat, and after the Germans entered the territory of the peninsula, the vast majority of their personnel deserted. Here is what is said about this in the memorandum of the Deputy Commissar of State Security of the USSR B.Z. Kobulov and the Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR I.A. Serov addressed to L.P. Beria, dated April 22, 1944:

“... All those drafted into the Red Army amounted to 90 thousand people, including 20 thousand Crimean Tatars ... 20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from the 51st Army during its retreat from the Crimea ...” .

That is, the desertion of the Crimean Tatars was almost universal. This is confirmed by the data for individual settlements. So, in the village of Koush, out of 132 drafted into the Red Army in 1941, 120 deserted.

Then began subservience to the invaders.

Crimean Tatars in the auxiliary troops of the Wehrmacht. February 1942

Eloquent is the testimony of the German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein: “... the majority of the Tatar population of Crimea was very friendly towards us. We even managed to form armed self-defense companies from the Tatars, whose task was to protect their villages from attacks by partisans hiding in the Yaila mountains .... The Tatars immediately took our side. They saw us as their liberators from the Bolshevik yoke, especially since we respected their religious customs. A Tatar delegation came to me, bringing fruits and beautiful handmade fabrics for the liberator of the Tatars “Adolf Effendi”.

On November 11, 1941, the so-called "Muslim committees" were created in Simferopol and a number of other cities and towns in Crimea. The organization of these committees and their activities took place under the direct supervision of the SS. Subsequently, the leadership of the committees passed to the headquarters of the SD. On the basis of Muslim committees, a "Tatar Committee" was created with centralized subordination to the Crimean Center in Simferopol with widely developed activities throughout the Crimea.

On January 3, 1942, the first official solemn meeting of the Tatar Committee took place in Simferopol. He welcomed the committee and said that the Fuhrer had accepted the offer of the Tatars to come out in arms to defend their homeland from the Bolsheviks. Tatars who are ready to take up arms will be enrolled in the German Wehrmacht, will be provided with everything and receive a salary on a par with German soldiers.

After the approval of the general events, the Tatars asked permission to end this first solemn meeting - the beginning of the struggle against the atheists - according to their custom, with a prayer, and repeated the following three prayers after their mullah:
1st prayer: for the achievement of an early victory and a common goal, as well as for the health and long life of the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.
2nd prayer: for the German people and their valiant army.
3rd prayer: for the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht who fell in battle.

Crimean Tatar legions in Crimea (1942): battalions 147-154.

Many Tatars were used as guides for punitive detachments. Separate Tatar units were sent to the Kerch front and partly to the Sevastopol sector of the front, where they participated in the battles against the Red Army.

Typically, local "volunteers" were used in one of the following structures:
1. Crimean Tatar formations as part of the German army.
2. Crimean Tatar punitive and security battalions SD.
3. Apparatus of the police and field gendarmerie.
4. Apparatus of prisons and SD camps.

A German non-commissioned officer leads the Crimean Tatars, most likely from the “self-defense” police detachment (under the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht)

Persons of Tatar nationality who served in the punitive bodies and military units of the enemy were dressed in German uniforms and provided with weapons. Persons who distinguished themselves in their treacherous activities were appointed by the Germans to command posts.

Certificate of the High Command of the German Ground Forces dated March 20, 1942:
“The mood of the Tatars is good. The German authorities are treated with obedience and are proud if they are recognized in the service or outside. The greatest pride for them is to have the right to wear the German uniform.”

A poster calling on the population to join the Waffen-SS. Crimea, 1942

It is also necessary to provide quantitative data on the Crimean Tatars turned out to be among the partisans. On June 1, 1943, there were 262 people in the Crimean partisan detachments, of which 145 were Russians, 67 Ukrainians and 6 Tatars.

After the defeat of the 6th German army of Paulus near Stalingrad, the Feodosia Muslim Committee collected one million rubles from the Tatars to help the German army. Members of Muslim committees in their work were guided by the slogan "Crimea only for the Tatars" and spread rumors about the annexation of Crimea to Turkey.
In 1943, the Turkish emissary Amil Pasha came to Feodosia, who called on the Tatar population to support the activities of the German command.

In Berlin, the Germans created a Tatar national center, whose representatives came to the Crimea in June 1943 to get acquainted with the work of Muslim committees.

Parade of the Crimean Tatar police battalion "Schuma". Crimea. Autumn 1942

In April-May 1944, the Crimean Tatar battalions fought against the Soviet troops liberating the Crimea. So, on April 13, in the area of the Islam-Terek station in the east of the Crimean peninsula, three Crimean Tatar battalions acted against units of the 11th Guards Corps, losing only 800 prisoners. The 149th battalion fought stubbornly in the battles for Bakhchisarai.

The remnants of the Crimean Tatar battalions were evacuated by sea. In July 1944, in Hungary, the Tatar Mountain Chasseurs Regiment of the SS was formed from them, which was soon deployed into the 1st Tatar Mountain Chasseurs Brigade. A certain number of Crimean Tatars were transferred to France and included in the reserve battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion. Others, mostly untrained youth, were assigned to the air defense auxiliaries.

Detachment of the Tatar "self-defense". Winter 1941 - 1942 Crimea.

After the liberation of the Crimea by the Soviet troops, the hour of reckoning came.

"By April 25, 1944, the NKVD-NKGB and Smersh NPOs arrested 4,206 anti-Soviet people, of which 430 spies were exposed. agents of German intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, 266 traitors to the Motherland and traitors, 363 accomplices and henchmen of the enemy, as well as members of punitive detachments.

48 members of Muslim committees were arrested, including Izmailov Apas - chairman of the Karasubazar district Muslim committee, Batalov Balat - chairman of the Muslim committee of Balaklava district, Ableizov Belial - chairman of the Muslim committee of Simeiz district, Aliev Mussa - chairman of the Muslim committee of Zui district.

A significant number of persons from the enemy agents, henchmen and accomplices of the Nazi invaders were identified and arrested.

In the city of Sudak, Umerov Vekir, the chairman of the district Muslim committee, was arrested, who admitted that, on the instructions of the Germans, he organized a volunteer detachment from a kulak-criminal element and waged an active struggle against the partisans.

In 1942, during the landing of our troops in the area of the city of Feodosia, Umerov's detachment detained 12 Red Army paratroopers and burned them alive. 30 people were arrested in the case.

In the city of Bakhchisaray, the traitor Abibulaev Jafar, who voluntarily joined the punitive battalion created by the Germans in 1942, was arrested. For an active struggle against Soviet patriots, Abibulaev was appointed commander of a punitive platoon and carried out the execution of civilians who he suspected of being connected with partisans.
Abibulaev was sentenced to death by hanging by the military field court.

In the Dzhankoy region, a group of three Tatars was arrested, who, on the instructions of German intelligence, poisoned 200 gypsies in a gas chamber in March 1942.

As of May 7 this year. 5381 agents of the enemy, traitors to the Motherland, accomplices of the Nazi invaders and other anti-Soviet elements were arrested.

5395 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars and a large number of grenades and rifle cartridges were confiscated illegally stored by the population...

By 1944, more than 20,000 Tatars deserted from the units of the Red Army, who betrayed their homeland, went over to the service of the Germans and fought against the Red Army with weapons in their hands ...

Soldier of the Tatar "self-defense" detachment. Winter 1941 - 1942 Crimea.

Taking into account the treacherous actions of the Crimean Tatars against the Soviet people and proceeding from the undesirability of the further residence of the Crimean Tatars on the border outskirts of the Soviet Union, the NKVD of the USSR submits for your consideration a draft decision of the State Defense Committee on the eviction of all Tatars from the territory of Crimea.
We consider it expedient to resettle the Crimean Tatars as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR for use in work both in agriculture - collective farms, state farms, and in industry and construction. The question of the resettlement of the Tatars in the Uzbek SSR was agreed with the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Uzbekistan Comrade Yusupov.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. Beria 10.05.44".

The next day, on May 11, 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted Decree No. 5859 on "On the Crimean Tatars":

“During the Patriotic War, many Crimean Tatars betrayed their homeland, deserted from the Red Army units defending the Crimea, and went over to the side of the enemy, joined the volunteer Tatar military units formed by the Germans, who fought against the Red Army; during the occupation of the Crimea by the Nazi troops, participating in the German punitive detachments, the Crimean Tatars were especially distinguished by their brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German invaders in organizing the forcible deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery and the mass extermination of Soviet people.

The Crimean Tatars actively cooperated with the German occupation authorities, participating in the so-called “Tatar national committees” organized by German intelligence and were widely used by the Germans to send spies and saboteurs to the rear of the Red Army. The “Tatar National Committees”, in which the White Guard-Tatar emigrants played the main role, with the support of the Crimean Tatars, directed their activities to the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of Crimea and carried out work to prepare the forcible secession of Crimea from the Soviet Union with the help of the German armed forces.

Crimean Tatars in German service. Romanian form. Crimea, 1943. Most likely, these are police officers from the Schuma battalion

Considering the foregoing, the State Defense Committee decides:

1. All Tatars must be evicted from the territory of Crimea and settled permanently as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR. The eviction is to be assigned to the NKVD of the USSR. Oblige the NKVD of the USSR (comrade Beria) to complete the eviction of the Crimean Tatars by June 1, 1944.

2. Establish the following procedure and conditions for eviction:
a) allow special settlers to take with them personal belongings, clothing, household equipment, dishes and food in the amount of up to 500 kilograms per family.

Remaining property, buildings, outbuildings, furniture and household land are taken over by local authorities; all productive and dairy cattle, as well as poultry, are accepted by the People's Commissariat of Meat and Dairy Industry, all agricultural products - by the USSR People's Commissariat of Education, horses and other working cattle - by the USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture, breeding stock - by the USSR People's Commissariat of State Farms.

Acceptance of livestock, grain, vegetables and other types of agricultural products is carried out with the issuance of exchange receipts for each settlement and each farm.

To instruct the NKVD of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, the People's Commissariat for Meat and Milk Industry, the People's Commissariat of State Farms and the People's Commissariat of Education of the USSR by July 1 of this year. to submit proposals to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the procedure for the return of livestock, poultry, and agricultural products received from them by exchange receipts to special settlers;

b) to organize the reception from the special settlers of the property, livestock, grain and agricultural products left by them in the places of eviction, send a commission of the Council of People's Commissars to the place.

Oblige the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR to send the necessary number of workers to the Crimea to ensure the reception of livestock, grain and agricultural products from special settlers;

c) oblige the NKPS to organize the transportation of special settlers from the Crimea to the Uzbek SSR in specially formed echelons according to a schedule drawn up jointly with the NKVD of the USSR. The number of trains, loading stations and destination stations at the request of the NKVD of the USSR. Payments for transportation shall be made according to the tariff for the transportation of prisoners;

d) The People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR allocate for each echelon with special settlers, within the time limits agreed with the NKVD of the USSR, one doctor and two nurses with an appropriate supply of medicines and provide medical and sanitary care for special settlers on the way; The People's Commissariat of the USSR to provide all echelons with special settlers daily with hot meals and boiling water.

To organize food for special settlers on the way, allocate food to the People's Commissariat of Trade in the amount according to Appendix No. 1.

3. To oblige the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Uzbekistan, comrade Yusupov, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR, comrade Abdurakhmanov, and the people's commissar of internal affairs of the Uzbek SSR, comrade Kobulov, until June 1 of this year. to carry out the following measures for the reception and resettlement of special settlers:

a) accept and resettle within the Uzbek SSR 140-160 thousand people of special settlers - Tatars, sent by the NKVD of the USSR from the Crimean ASSR.

Resettlement of special settlers to be carried out in state farm settlements, existing collective farms, subsidiary farms of enterprises and industrial settlements for use in agriculture and industry;

b) in the areas of resettlement of special settlers, create commissions consisting of the chairman of the regional executive committee, the secretary of the regional committee and the head of the UNKVD, entrusting these commissions with carrying out all activities related to the reception and accommodation of arriving special settlers;

c) in each area of resettlement of special settlers, organize district troikas consisting of the chairman of the district executive committee, the secretary of the district committee and the head of the RO NKVD, entrusting them with preparing for the accommodation and organizing the reception of arriving special settlers;

d) prepare horse-drawn vehicles for the transportation of special settlers, mobilizing the transport of any enterprises and institutions for this;

e) ensure that incoming special settlers are provided with household plots and assist in the construction of houses with local building materials;

f) organize special commandant's offices of the NKVD in the areas of resettlement of special settlers, attributing their maintenance at the expense of the estimate of the NKVD of the USSR;

g) Central Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR by May 20 of this year. submit to the NKVD of the USSR, Comrade Beria, a project for the resettlement of special settlers in regions and districts, indicating the station for unloading echelons.

4 Oblige the Agricultural Bank to issue to special settlers sent to the Uzbek SSR, in their places of settlement, a loan for the construction of houses and for household equipment up to 5,000 rubles per family, with an installment plan of up to 7 years.

5. To oblige the People's Commissariat of the USSR to allocate flour, cereals and vegetables to the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR for distribution to special settlers during June-August of this year. monthly in equal amounts, according to Appendix No. 2.

Issuance of flour, cereals and vegetables to special settlers during June-August this year. to produce free of charge, in payment for the agricultural products and livestock accepted from them in the places of eviction.

6. To oblige the NPO to transfer during May-June this year. to reinforce the motor transport of the NKVD troops stationed by garrisons in the areas of resettlement of special settlers - in the Uzbek SSR, the Kazakh SSR and the Kirghiz SSR, 100 Willis vehicles and 250 trucks that were out of repair.

7. To oblige Glavneftesnab to allocate and ship until May 20, 1944 to points at the direction of the NKVD of the USSR 400 tons of gasoline, at the disposal of the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR - 200 tons.

The supply of motor gasoline is to be carried out at the expense of a uniform reduction in supplies to all other consumers.

8. Oblige Glavsnabless under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR at the expense of any resources to supply the NKPS with 75,000 wagon boards of 2.75 m each, with their delivery before May 15 of this year; transportation of NKPS boards to be carried out by one's own means.

9. Narkomfin of the USSR to release the NKVD of the USSR in May of this year. 30 million rubles from the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for special events.

Chairman of the State Defense Committee I. Stalin.

Note: The norm for 1 person per month: flour - 8 kg, vegetables - 8 kg and cereals 2 kg

The operation was carried out quickly and decisively. The eviction began on May 18, 1944, and already on May 20, Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR I.A. Serov and Deputy People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR B.Z. Kobulov reported in a telegram addressed to People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria:

“We are hereby reporting that, launched in accordance with your instructions on May 18 of this year. The operation to evict the Crimean Tatars was completed today, May 20, at 16:00. A total of 180,014 people were evicted, loaded into 67 trains, of which 63 trains numbering 173,287 people. sent to their destinations, the remaining 4 trains will also be sent today.

In addition, the district military commissariats of Crimea mobilized 6,000 Tatars of draft age, who, according to the orders of the Main Department of the Red Army, were sent to the cities of Guryev, Rybinsk and Kuibyshev.

Of the 8,000 people of the special contingent sent on your instructions to the Moskovugol trust, 5,000 people. are also made up of Tatars.

Thus, 191,044 persons of Tatar nationality were deported from the Crimean ASSR.

During the eviction of the Tatars, 1137 anti-Soviet elements were arrested, and in total during the operation - 5989 people.
Weapons seized during the eviction: mortars - 10, machine guns - 173, machine guns - 192, rifles - 2650, ammunition - 46,603 pieces.

In total, during the operation, the following were seized: mortars - 49, machine guns - 622, machine guns - 724, rifles - 9888 and ammunition - 326,887 pieces.

There were no incidents during the operation."

Of the 151,720 Crimean Tatars sent to the Uzbek SSR in May 1944, 191 died on the way.
From the moment of deportation to October 1, 1948, 44,887 people from among those evicted from Crimea (Tatars, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians and others) died.

As for those few Crimean Tatars who really honestly fought in the Red Army or in partisan detachments, then, contrary to generally accepted opinion, they were not subjected to eviction. About 1,500 Crimean Tatars remain in Crimea

"Secret Field Police No. 647
No. 875/41 Translation to His Highness Herr Hitler!

Allow me to convey to you our heartfelt greetings and our deep gratitude for the liberation of the Crimean Tatars (Muslims), who were languishing under the bloodthirsty Jewish-Communist yoke. We wish you a long life, success and victory for the German Army throughout the world.

The Tatars of the Crimea are ready, at your call, to fight together with the German people's army on any front. At present, in the forests of Crimea there are partisans, Jewish commissars, communists and commanders who did not have time to escape from Crimea.

For the speedy elimination of partisan groups in the Crimea, we earnestly ask you to allow us, as good connoisseurs of the roads and paths of the Crimean forests, to organize from the former "kulaks" who have been groaning for 20 years under the yoke of Jewish-Communist domination, armed detachments led by the German command .

We assure you that in the shortest possible time the partisans in the forests of Crimea will be destroyed to the last man.

We remain devoted to you, and again and again we wish you success in your affairs and a long life.

Long live His Highness, Herr Adolf Hitler!

Long live the heroic, invincible German people's army!

The son of a manufacturer and the grandson of a former urban
heads of the city of Bakhchisaray - A.M. ABLAEV

Simferopol, Sufi 44.

That's right: Sonderführer - SCHUMANS

GA RF
FOUNDATION R-9401 DISCLOSURES 2 CASES 100 SHEETS 390"

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And the Day of struggle for the rights of the Crimean Tatar people. #Letters collected shocking but important facts about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and its consequences.

1. EVEN VETERANS WERE DEPORTED

It is well known that the formal reason for the deportation of the Crimean Tatars - the indigenous people of Crimea - was the accusation of collaborationism. The resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. GOKO-5859 dated 05/11/1944 on the eviction of the Crimean Tatars from their historical homeland stated that many of them betrayed the Soviet Union, went over to the side of the enemy, and even joined the German punitive detachments. Worse, “Crimean Tatars were especially notable for their cruel reprisals against Soviet partisans and helped the German invaders in organizing the forcible removal of Soviet citizens into German slavery,” the authors of the document claimed. In their minds, deportation was a symmetrical response.

But it should be remembered that before the war and in the period from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, about 21 thousand Crimean Tatars were drafted into the Red Army from the Crimean ASSR. During the war, four Crimean divisions were formed on the territory of the autonomous republic. One of them (Evpatoria) was disbanded almost immediately due to a lack of weapons, but this problem soon affected the defense capability of other links. Most of the mobilized Tatars, however, did not fight on the territory of the ASSR, but on the Transcaucasian and Southwestern fronts.

Many Soviet historians cited the figure - about 20 thousand Crimean Tatar deserters. In the post-Soviet period, Ukrainian historians come to the conclusion that this figure is overestimated at times. During the fighting for Crimea, no more than 4,900 Crimeans went missing, and it is impossible to say that all of them went over to the side of the enemy - probably, many just joined the partisan detachments. At the same time, more than 3,000 Crimean Tatars were killed during the war.

The family of the famous Soviet pilot Amet Khan Sultan was also deported

The demobilized were also subjected to deportation - the number of deported Crimean Tatar veterans is estimated at almost 9 thousand people. People who had been evacuated from the Crimea before the start of the occupation and returned home by the spring of 1944 were also expelled.

2. THERE WERE 15 MINUTES FOR CAMPAIGN

When soldiers began to arrive in trucks on the evening of May 17 in some villages, the Tatars, as was customary, offered them to share the table, Sabe Useinova recalls. But by 19:00, the guests switched to an official tone and began to drive people out of their houses with rifle butts. Many in the confusion did not have time to take documents with them.

The time allotted for the training camp depended on the whim of the commander of the group of soldiers, since the prescribed 2 hours for the training camp were practically not given to anyone. True, there is evidence of how the Chailak family was allowed to bake before sending the cakes - just about 2 hours delay. Usually 10-15 minutes were given, and sometimes even less: in Ak-Bash - 7, in Bakhchisarai - 5.

It is clear that it was impossible to collect the allowed 500 kg of things per family for such a period of time. Any official permits, including the rations due to the special settlers, turned into a mockery.

3. TOTALLY MORE THAN 190 THOUSAND PEOPLE WAS DEPORTED CIVIL

A telegram from the NKVD addressed to Stalin reported that 183,155 people had been deported from Crimea (after demobilization in 1945, this figure would increase). Most of the Crimean Tatars (151 thousand) were deported to Uzbekistan. Smaller groups ended up in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the Mari ASSR and the Urals.

“In the course of the eviction of the Tatars, 1,137 anti-Soviet elements were arrested, and in total during the operation 5,989 people,” a telegram of May 20, 1944, addressed to Beria, was reported.

The total number of deportees in it is already 191 thousand. The last train arrived at the places of the special settlement on June 8. On this day, Comrade Beria himself reported from Tashkent that 191 people died on the way - that is, approximately one in a thousand. Undoubtedly, this figure is significantly underestimated.

People on the trains died not only from hunger (some of them received state-owned food only once), thirst, stuffiness, and various diseases, but also from catastrophic stress. Numerous testimonies of corpses being pushed out of the windows under the roof of the car, and in the best case, left without burial somewhere at the stop, confirm the fact that the deaths numbered in the thousands. According to historians, more than 7.8 thousand people died during transportation.

Infographics: Ukrinform

4. ARABAT TATARS FORGOT TO SEND - AND REMEMBERING, DEAL WITH THEM

Due to the lack of documentary evidence, many consider the tragedy at the Arabat Spit a myth. We are talking about the Crimean Tatars, who lived along a narrow strip of land near the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. For some reason, the residents of the Arabat Spit escaped deportation. When in 1945 Bogdan Kobulov was informed about the omission, he ordered to clear the area within two hours (subsequently, the period was extended to a day). A few Crimeans were gathered at the pier, loaded into the hold of an old barge - or several - and then towed out to sea and opened the kingstones, battening down the upper hatches.

Although it is difficult to say for sure about the reality and scale of this tragic episode, a similar action in the Chechen village of Khaibakh speaks in favor of its veracity, where local residents who could not be deported in time were burned by the NKVD in one of the stables.

Installation by Roman Mikhailov “Radif. The Last Child” is a book made from the metal of railroad freight cars used during the deportation.

5. Special settlers were sent to typhoid state farms

The incidence of the Crimean Tatars in comparison with the inhabitants of Uzbekistan was huge. The main carrier of diseases, including malaria and dysentery, was dirty water. In addition, the Soviet authorities neglected the danger of the spread of quarantine diseases. Even before the arrival of the trains, a telegram was sent to Moscow stating that not a single settlement in the Kermeninsky district of Uzbekistan was ready to receive settlers. The reason is the spread in it of two forms of typhus (F-1 and F-5). Both forms are extremely dangerous and are easily transmitted from person to person. The patients were supposed to be completely isolated - but nothing of the kind, of course, happened. Crimean Tatars were sent to state farms suffering from typhus, did not receive proper medical care and died with their families. In 1944-48. mortality among them was higher than the birth rate by almost 7 times.

6. PROPAGANDA STIGMATIZED THE DEPORTED TATARS – AND NOT ONLY AS “COLLABORATIONISTS”

Along the route of the trains with the population, “explanatory work” was carried out. Moreover, the Crimean Tatars were presented not just as traitors to the socialist homeland and accomplices of Hitler, but literally as some fantastic monsters: dangerous animal-like creatures and even cannibals. Historian Valery Vozgrin says: “In Andijan, some Uzbek woman felt for a long time the head of Asanov’s son Murtaza, trying to find horns, even if they were very small.” The locals either tried to stay away from the trains passing through the stations, or vice versa, prepared stones to throw at the newcomers.

A resident of the near-station village Boz-Su recalled: “Everyone was quiet. They were waiting for the door to open. And so the escort opened the door, and all the people leaned forward - each with his own weapon. What appeared before our eyes cannot be described at once. I still can't forget this. Those eyes, those faces, those living corpses that looked at us from the boxcars, barely lifting themselves from the floor in their arms. These half-dead people are before my eyes now and they always stand before me all my life when I look into the eyes of elderly Crimean Tatars. It seems to me that it was them that I saw then on the platform.

7. THOUSANDS OF LIBRARIES DESTROYED

Of course, Stalin's policy towards the Crimean Tatars was not limited to physical displacement and extermination. The genocide also had its own cultural aspect. More than 500 rural national libraries, 861 school libraries (following the schools themselves), several large libraries and more than 100 large private collections were liquidated. Books in the Crimean Tatar language, stored in Russian libraries, were also destroyed - as a rule, they were burned.

“Crimean Tatars. Whoever has never been to the Crimea has never seen beauty.” Postcard by E.M. Bem (1910)

The library collection "Tavrika" of the 19th century, which included rare books, manuscripts, maps and drawings, was plundered at the beginning of the occupation of Crimea, but the Germans were not interested in exporting books in the language of the Crimean Tatars, and the Soviet leadership was not interested in saving them. In May 1944, the remaining books were burned in the courtyard of the Central Republican Museum. Most of the pre-revolutionary and medieval manuscripts also did not survive this period.

8. LATER EVERYONE RETURNED TO THE HOMELAND

As you know, not only the Crimean Tatars were deported in the 1940s. In 1944, Crimean Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians were also deported. But, unlike them, who returned to their homeland in the late 50s, the Tatars were formally deprived of such a right until 1974 (in fact, until the 1980s). Many special settlers simply did not have the financial opportunity to return.

Often, Crimean Tatar orphans kept in orphanages received Russian or Uzbek surnames. Later, this prevented them from establishing contact with relatives.

9. THE OLD TOPONYMS WERE NOT SERIOUS ALSO

Crimean Tatars were not just separated from their families and torn from their homes. The very memory of them had to be destroyed, right down to the article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Most geographical names were "Sovietized".

In 1944–1945 in Crimea, 11 regional centers were renamed (Larindorfsky district became Pervomaisky, Ak-Mechetsky - Chernomorsky) and 327 villages. Sometimes the renaming commissions chose traditional “red” toponyms, but sometimes fanciful names like New World, Burevestnik and Zhemchuzhina appeared.

Fragment of the map of Crimea of the Crimean Statistical Office, 1922

In September 1948, Stalin visited the Crimea, and after his meeting with the secretary of the Yalta City Party Committee, a resolution was adopted “On the renaming of settlements, streets, certain types of work and other Tatar designations”. Local governments were forced to choose new names even for mountains and rivers. During the last renaming, 1062 settlements and more than a thousand natural objects received new names - about 80% of their total number. In the 1950s, the process slowed down, although Cape Toprak-Kaya still managed to become a Chameleon.

“The village of Biyuk-Yashlav, the former estate of the Crimean Tatar nobles, was named Repino, because the artist Repin was supposedly there once,” says historian Gulnara Bekirova. “But such thoughtfulness is rare, usually the process was chaotic.”

10. PERSECUTION OF THE CRIMEAN TATARS AS AN ETHNOUS DID NOT END WITH THE XX CENTURY

In 2014, Mustafa Dzhemilev noted that the Russian authorities are thinking about “creating conditions that will maximize the exit of Crimean Tatars from Crimea.” Too often one hears about new searches, disappearances of Crimean Tatars and their oppression on the annexed peninsula. Thus, a new wave of repressions was reported on May 8, when Russian security forces took away the son of the head of the district Majlis, Ilver Ametov, in an unknown direction.

The Mejlis itself is recognized in Russia as an extremist association. According to European human rights activists, this contradicts the decree on the rehabilitation of the peoples of Crimea, which Putin signed after the annexation of the peninsula.

In 2016, the vice-speaker, the so-called. The Crimean State Council Remzi Ilyasov said that the Crimean Tatars would not hold large mourning rallies on May 18. “We agreed that the initiative that was filed last year should be continued this year and that this day be spent peacefully, remembering all our relatives and friends who did not live to see their return to Crimea,” he said.

In fact, this means an unspoken ban on holding mass gatherings by Crimean Tatars.

In Kiev, on the contrary, actions are being held in support of the Tatars, and the Verkhovna Rada honored the victims of the genocide with a minute of silence. Like the Crimean Tatars, many Ukrainians are deprived of the opportunity to return to their homeland, so solidarity and common memory are more important than ever.