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18.05.2022

Following the Footsteps of the Soviet Union’s Crimes, or the Crimean Tatars – Never Again…

Crimean Tatars – Eastern European Turkic people, historically formed in Crimea; along with a few Karaites and Krymchaks, the Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea, thus, one of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine

Following the Footsteps of the Soviet Union’s Crimes, or the Crimean Tatars – Never Again…

The Ukrainian people have long regarded the Crimean Tatars as their part. They have always been and are treated now with respect – like other indigenous peoples of Ukraine. However, these few proud people have experienced several blatant and painful episodes in their history, fighting for the right to live normally in their homeland.



The most tragic page in the history of this nation is the deportation of Crimean Tatars, which began on May 18, 1944. It is also one of the most striking examples of the crimes committed by the Soviet regime during World War II.

The reason for the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars was an ungrounded accusation of their mass collaboration with the Nazi occupiers during the hostilities. The atrocity was executed after the expulsion of the occupiers, but was planned long before. Historical facts are proving that.

The expulsion of the Germans and their allies from Crimea finally ended on the night of May 13, 1944. Within a week, the Soviet authorities began deporting Crimean Tatars, accusing them of mass desertion and cooperation with the enemy. Later, other peoples of Crimea were similarly accused, experiencing the Soviet Union’s flywheel force. There was no evidence of the “mass desertion” of Crimean Tatars. Of course, there were isolated cases of cooperation, as during any other war, but the vast majority of collaborators died in battles or were convicted individually.

Planning for the deportation of Crimean Tatars began before the expulsion of the Nazis from Crimea, and there is indisputable evidence of this. In a report sent to Lavrentiy Beria on April 22 Crimean Tatars were accused of mass desertion from the Red Army, and on May 10, Beria reiterated his intentions in a letter to Stalin, mentioning “Crimean Tatars’ treacherous actions against the Soviet people” and “undesirability of further residence of Crimean Tatars on the borderland of the Soviet Union”. In the same letter, a proposal was made to deport the entire Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan.

Following this letter, on May 11, 1944, a top-secret resolution of the State Defense Committee № 5859cc “On the Crimean Tatars” was adopted. It cited previous claims against the Crimean Tatar population, such as mass betrayal and mass collaborationism, to justify the deportation. There was no evidence of “mass desertion” of Crimean Tatars, though, and all allegations were falsified.

The fate of the Crimean Tatars was sealed with a single signature, and the hell began. The deportation of the Crimean Tatar population began at 3 AM on May 18, 1944, and ended, according to historical data, for the most part, on May 20. Just imagine! During the war in the Soviet Union, 32,000 People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs officers were involved in the operation. “Deportees” were given from a few minutes to half an hour to gather their belongings, and were conditionally allowed to bring personal items, utensils, household items, and provisions, as long as their baggage is no more than 500 kg per family. But there was no use for this limit… When you are evicted from your home in minutes, you can take only what is most important, your children and the necessities… Most people managed to bring 20–30 kilograms of belongings and food on average, and the vast majority of their property remained confiscated by the state. Numerous cases of looting by NKVD officers carrying out these illegal actions have been recorded. For two days, the Crimean Tatars were transported by cars to the largest railway junctions, including Bakhchysarai, Dzhankoi, and Simferopol, and from there on trains sent to the East of the Soviet Union…

Historians now estimate that 180,014 people were deported during the main wave of deportations in just three days (May 18–20), with 67 echelons. In addition, 6,000 Crimean Tatar young men were mobilized by the military enlistment offices and sent to Guryev (Atyrau, Kazakhstan), Kuibyshev, and Rybinsk. Another 5,000 Crimean Tatars were sent to work in the Moscowuhol trust work camps. A total of 191,044 people were deported from Crimea in the first two days. In addition, 5,989 people were accused of collaborating with the Germans, and they were arrested during the deportation as so-called “anti-Soviet elements”. They were sent to the Gulag and were later excluded from the general reports on exiles. The scale of the tragedy is simply astounding!

Later, other nations also went through Soviet repression. During the June deportations of Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, and other “foreign nationals”, an additional 3,141 Crimean Tatars were deported in addition to the May deportees. Thus, more than 200,000 indigenous people were deported from Crimea. Moreover, 2,882 Russians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, Karaites, and others were also deported from Crimea because they were married to Crimean Tatars. Soviet authorities made no concessions. Official reports mention that hundreds of people died while being deported, but the testimonies of witnesses reveal higher numbers  – from several hundred to thousands. These were the spoils of Soviet crimes, human lives wasted without count during the war.

After the victory in the Second World War, the Crimean Tatars still had many trials ahead. The total demobilization of the Crimean Tatars from the Soviet army did not, unfortunately, mean that they could go home… From 1945 to1946, 8,995 servicemen were sent to labor camps in Siberia and the Urals, and only after 1953 they were allowed to reunite with their families in exile.

The Soviet Government Decree of January 8, 1945 “On the Legal Status of Special Settlers” stated that resettled Crimean Tatars kept all the rights of citizens of the USSR, but they were stripped of the freedom of movement. They couldn’t leave the “areas of special settlement” designated for them, heads of families had to register monthly at the police stations, and all changes in families had to be reported to the police within three days.

Their life on paper did not reflect the reality, however. The deportation had catastrophic consequences for the Crimean Tatars in exile. In the last year of WWII, more than 30,000 Crimean Tatars died of starvation, disease, and exhaustion. Significant damage was done to the economy of Crimea as the peninsula was stripped of a lion’s share of skilled workers. However, seeing totalitarian ideology and politics through was more important to Soviet government than even human lives…

Later on, on July 5, 1954, the Soviet government stopped keeping tabs on resettled Crimean Tatars under the age of 16, as well as all Crimean Tatar youth studying in educational institutions. On July 13, 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR repealed its decree of November 26, 1948, that stopped criminal liability for fleeing exile. Finally, on April 28, 1956, Crimean Tatars deported from Crimea were released from special settlements without the right to return to the places they were deported from, that is, without the right to return home!

Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on December 15, 1956, on the resettlement of Tatars, Germans, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Armenians, who previously lived in the Crimean region and returned from special settlements, recognized their return to Crimea as unacceptable, and considered their resettlement in Kherson, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Odesa regions as “undesirable”.

But even under such difficult conditions, the unconquered people fought for their rights, and it yielded some results. Many actions Crimean Tatars took to protect their right to their homeland appeared successful. On September 5, 1967, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “On Tatar citizens living in Crimea”, which dropped the accusations of treason against Crimean Tatars, but proclaimed the alleged permanent settlement of Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. In January 1974, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR reverted the decree prohibiting Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Crimean Tatars from returning to Crimea to their former places of residence. Unfortunately, these changes did not take place in any way but on paper. There were many obstacles to repatriation, and most often people returned to Crimea on their own, overcoming inhuman barriers on their way back to the homeland. Years passed, and even the realities of the Soviet Union changed…

On November 14, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Declaration on the “Recognition of Illegal and Criminal Repressive Acts against Peoples Subjected to Forced Resettlement and Ensuring Their Rights”, and on March 7, 1991, the Resolution on the “Abolition of Legislation within the Declaration of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 14, 1989 ‘On the Recognition of Illegal and Criminal Acts of Repression Against Peoples Who Have Been Forcibly Displaced and the Protection of their Rights.” Thus, the restoration of real estate and other property possessed by repatriates before the deportation at the expense of the state, gained the necessary legitimacy.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine took upon itself the responsibility to protect the rights of Crimean Tatars under current Ukrainian law, but the happiness of returning to safety of their historic lands did not last long.

The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in February 2014 opened the wounds that just began healing. Crimean Tatars had to fighting for their rights again. On March 20, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Resolution № 1140-18 “On the Statement of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Guaranteeing the Rights of the Crimean Tatar People within the Ukrainian State”, which recognized Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Ukraine and guaranteed their right to self-determination.

In 2014, for the first time in recent history, the Russian occupiers of Crimea banned a traditional mourning rally in the center of Simferopol on May 18, so the Crimean Tatars were forced to commemorate the 70th anniversary of their deportation surrounded by police and escorted by helicopters. Only in the first year after the annexation in 2014, more than 150 Crimean Tatars were subjected to “selective justice”, 21 disappeared or were killed, and the Majlis was deprived of both its headquarters and the opportunity to engage in dialogue with state bodies of the so-called “Crimea Republic” under Russian occupation.

It is the eighth year of the occupation of Crimea, and all faces bear witness to the fact that Russia continues to persecute the  Crimean Tatar people.

Thus, honoring the memory of the victims of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people and demonstrating solidarity in the struggle to restore their rights and freedoms becomes important in Ukraine and internationally.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by Resolution of November 12, 2015, 792-VIII “On Recognition of the Crimean Tatar Genocide” named May 18 the official Day of Remembrance for Victims of the Genocide of Crimean Tatar People in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Parliament stated that systemic pressure on the Crimean Tatar people, repression of Ukrainian citizens on the grounds of their nationality, organization of ethnically and politically motivated prosecution of Crimean Tatars and their organizations, such as the Crimean Tatar People’s Majlis and the Crimean Tatar People’s Kurultai, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine by the officials of the Russian Federation, is a conscious policy of ethnocide of the Crimean Tatar people.

Ukraine is waiting for the reunification of all its lands and all its ethnic nationalities, and is doing everything possible to contain the offensive of the “second army of the world” so that the tragedy of genocide of nations and peoples would never happen again, anywhere in the world!

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