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 for 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 - 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 the 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.

Which was based on the following theses: there was a desertion of 20,000 Crimean Tatars from the Red Army, “Crimean Tatar committees” organized the forced deportation of about 50,000 Soviet citizens from Crimea to work in Germany, there were fears in the field of national security of the USSR due to the presence of a hostile, according to Beria, the population in the "border region". It should be noted that the Government of the USSR was not yet aware of the true scale of the crimes of the Nazis and collaborators in Crimea, which actually consisted of 85,447 people deported to Germany and 71,921 executed with the participation of "Noise" from the Crimean Tatars, including murder by brutal methods of about 15,000 civilians from communist families in the Krasnoy concentration camp. The draft decision was prepared by a member of the State Defense Committee, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria. The deputies of the People's Commissars for State Security and Internal Affairs B. Z. Kobulov and I. A. Serov were entrusted with leading the deportation operation.

According to Western experts, about 15% of the male population of the Crimean Tatars fought on the side of the Red Army. Bugay N. F. notes that among the red partisans in the Crimea, the Tatars accounted for 16%. However, Crimean Tatars who fought in the Red Army and partisan detachments were also subjected to administrative expulsion. There are exceptions when officers from among the Crimean Tatars were not sent to places of deportation as special settlers, such as pilots Amet Khan Sultan and Emir Usein Chalbash, but they were forbidden to live in Crimea.

Despite the fact that they did not live in the occupation and could not participate in collaborationist formations, the Crimean Tatars were also deported, who were evacuated from the Crimea before it was occupied by the Germans and managed to return from the evacuation in April-May 1944. In particular, all Crimean Tatars, who were evacuated during the war, were deported - leaders and employees of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (headed by the first secretary) and the Council of People's Commissars of the KASSR. This was explained by the fact that the new location needed leading workers (they were not expelled from the party).

Deportation

The deportation operation began early in the morning on May 18 and ended at 4:00 pm on May 20, 1944. More than 32,000 troops of the NKVD were involved in its implementation. The deportees were given from several minutes to half an hour to collect, after which they were transported by trucks to the railway stations. From there, trains under escort went to places of exile. According to eyewitnesses, those who resisted or could not walk were sometimes shot on the spot. Although the Chekists seized a huge amount of firearms and even field artillery from 49 mortars from the Crimean Tatars during the searches, the sources do not record significant armed clashes with the NKVD Troops.

According to GKO Decree No. 5859-ss, Crimean Tatars were allowed to take with them “personal belongings, clothes, household equipment, dishes and food” in the amount of 1/2 ton per family. 250 trucks were allocated to transport such a large amount of personal belongings and products. If the family had food for more than 1/2 ton, then it was possible to hand over “grain, vegetables and other types of agricultural products” according to the inventory, as well as personal livestock. This property was accepted by employees of the People's Commissariat for Meat and Milk Industry, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR according to "exchange receipts", where it was valued in monetary terms at state rates, then at the place of arrival the displaced families were given the same property or at the same state rates for a given amount of money it was possible to receive " flour, cereals and vegetables. The issuance of "exchange receipts" was a standard procedure used in the USSR when moving people during World War II to reduce logistics costs, these documents were subject to strict state accounting.

The movement of deportees is covered differently by Crimean Tatar and Russian sources. Crimean Tatar sources, citing Crimean Tatar witnesses, point to restrictions on food, water and medical care, which, in their opinion, led to significant deaths on the way. Russian sources usually refer to paragraph 3-d and Appendix 1 of Decree No. 5859-ss, which indicate that the conditions of detention on the way were as follows: on the way, the settlers had to be provided with hot meals and boiling water, for this the USSR People's Commissariat of Trade allocated food based on daily norm per person: bread 500 g, meat and fish 70 g, cereals 60 g, butter 10 g. The USSR People's Commissariat of Health allocated one doctor and two nurses with a supply of medicines for each echelon with special settlers. The transportation itself was carried out in heating wagons, that is, a “goods wagon” converted to transport people by installing a “stove-stove”, installing bunks and partial insulation. Before the transportation of the Crimean Tatars, the walls of the heating wagons were repaired with "lining", snapping into profiled grooves to protect against blowing, for which Glavsnabless allocated 75,000 profiled wagon boards for their repair.

The Crimean Tatars give the following testimonies about the conditions on the way:

In a telegram from the NKVD addressed to Stalin, it was indicated that 183,155 people were evicted. According to official figures, 191 people died on the road. Crimean Tatar sources usually indicate that mortality is associated with limited access to water, food and medicine. Russian sources usually refer to the fact that this mortality is comparable to the natural one for such a number of people transported, taking into account the travel time, and since the echelons included elderly people, most of the dead could have died from old age, and not from bad conditions.

According to the Department of Special Settlements of the NKVD, in November 1944, 193,865 Crimean Tatars were in the places of eviction, of which 151,136 were in Uzbekistan, 8,597 in the Mari ASSR, 4,286 in the Kazakh SSR, the rest were distributed "for use at work" in Molotov (10,555), Kemerovo (6,743), Gorky (5,095), Sverdlovsk (3,594), Ivanovo (2,800), Yaroslavl (1,059) regions of the RSFSR.

In Uzbekistan, many migrants were assigned to work on the construction of the Farhad hydroelectric power station in the city of Bekabad, at the Koitash mines in the Samarkand region and Tashkent-Stalingugol, at collective farms and state farms in the Tashkent, Andijan, Samarkand regions, Shakhrizyab, Kitab districts of the Kashkadarya region. For the most part, they were placed in barracks not adapted for habitation, and at the Koytash mine they generally ended up in the open.

Consequences

Mass death of Crimean Tatars during the famine of 1946-1947 in the USSR

The plight of the Crimean Tatar special settlers already on July 8, 1944 was brought up for discussion by the bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. In the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of Uzbekistan and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, the regional committees of the party were instructed to take urgent measures to find employment and "improve the life" of the special settlers. The People's Commissariat of Health was to take measures "to improve medical care in places of outbreaks of epidemics (the Narpay state farm, the Tashkent-Stalingugol mine, etc.)" .

Nevertheless, the life of the deportees was difficult, working conditions were discriminatory (the choice of a place of work was excluded, access to leadership positions and mental work was difficult), and mortality was high.

However, the maximum test of the Crimean Tatar people occurred during a large-scale famine in the USSR in 1946-1947, during which, according to M. Ellman, about 1.5 million people died, of which up to 16 thousand Crimean Tatars. Although the Crimean Tatars who died of starvation were not large in the total number of citizens of the USSR, they were enormous losses for a small people. Estimates of the number of deaths during this period vary greatly: from 15-25%, according to various Soviet official bodies, to 46%, according to estimates of activists of the Crimean Tatar movement, who collected information about the dead in the 1960s. So, according to the OSP of the UzSSR, only “in 6 months of 1944, that is, from the moment of arrival in the UzSSR and until the end of the year, 16,052 people died. (10.6%)” .

Restoration of the rights of Crimean Tatars and their return to Crimea

For 12 years, until 1956, the Crimean Tatars had the status of special settlers, which meant various restrictions on their rights. All special settlers were registered and were required to register with the commandant's offices. By the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of November 21, 1947 and the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of November 26, 1948, the situation of special settlers was toughened: moving to another area could be allowed only if there was a “call” from close relatives; for unauthorized exit outside the permitted place of settlement, a five-day arrest was threatened, and a repeated violation was considered as an escape from the place of exile and was punished by 20 years of hard labor. By a decree of July 13, 1954, liability for unauthorized leaving the place of exile was reduced to 1 year in prison. Formally, the special settlers retained civil rights: they had the right to participate in elections, the communists joined the local party organizations.

In 1967, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On citizens of Tatar nationality who previously lived in Crimea” was adopted, which item 1 lifted all sanctions against Crimean Tatars and even gave a condemning assessment of previous legislative acts as “groundless accusations ... unreasonably attributed to everything Tatar population of Crimea. However, paragraph 2 of the same Decree actually refers to the passport regime that existed in the USSR, tying the Crimean Tatars to the place of registration to newly built houses on the land plots issued to them, mainly in the Uzbek SSR. Recall that under Decree No. 5859-ss, the Government of the USSR gave the Crimean Tatars in the Uzbek USSR free land and provided building materials for the construction of new houses, as well as a loan of 5,000 rubles for such construction. Therefore, from the point of view of the Government of the USSR, the Crimean Tatars, as those who received this property, should have lived in these houses in the Uzbek SSR, where they were registered. Also in the USSR, there were restrictions on changing jobs in another region under labor law, including because of the place of registration. Therefore, the Crimean Tatars, despite the fullness of their rights as citizens of the USSR, could not actually return to Crimea, since they could not get housing and work in Crimea.

On November 28, 1989, the USSR Supreme Council, by its Decree No. 845-1, approved the “Conclusions and proposals of the commission on the problems of the Crimean Tatar people”. This document provided for the complete political rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar people and the abolition of normative acts of a repressive and discriminatory nature, and also recognized the legitimate right of the Crimean Tatar people to return to "places of historical residence and restore national integrity", to review cases initiated for participation in the Crimean Tatar national movement. Also, the restoration of the Crimean ASSR as part of the Ukrainian SSR. The task of returning to the Crimea was proposed to be solved through an organized, group and individual move. G. Yanaev's commission considered it necessary to propose to the Council of Ministers of the USSR to revise the resolution "On limiting the registration of citizens in certain settlements of the Crimean region and Krasnodar Territory" of December 24, 1987 and remove restrictions for the Crimean Tatars.

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 this decree, Crimean Tatars could receive land plots and building materials in Crimea for free, but at the same time they could sell land plots with houses in Uzbekistan that they had previously received for money, so migration during this period brought great economic benefits to Crimean Tatars. Before the collapse of the USSR, it was also very profitable for Crimean Tatars to sell housing in Uzbekistan, since the standard of living of citizens of the USSR did not differ very much in the republics, as in the post-Soviet states, and about 150,000 Crimean Tatars managed to move to Crimea even before the collapse of the USSR with minimal losses. The hardest hit were the roughly 60,000 Crimean Tatars who were forced to move to Crimea with the collapse of the USSR, as Uzbekistan experienced a massive economic crisis and GDP per capita fell sharply relative to other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Pribytkova, in her research, notes that the main migration incentives were poverty (65.6%) and unemployment (31.6%) among the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. At the same time, only 12.5% ​​of Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan named such problems as isolation from their people, separation of families, and the inability to communicate with relatives as the main incentive for migration. The economic crisis and the subsequent mass emigration from Uzbekistan significantly devalued the land plots and houses of the Crimean Tatars, so in 1997 prices, the houses of the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan cost on average about 5,800 US dollars, and in the Crimea, those desired by the Crimean Tatars cost 2.4 times more (it should, however, be taken into account that 64.8% of Crimean Tatars wanted to get the most expensive real estate in Crimea within the infrastructure of urban-type settlements). The return to Crimea was also explained by the growth of nationalist sentiments in Uzbekistan in the late 80s and early 90s, directed against Russians, Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars.

October 1, 1990 in the Crimea, for the first time after the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people on May 18, 1944, the only state body of the Crimean Tatars was formed - the Committee for the Restoration of the Rights of the Crimean Tatar People and Organized Return to their Homeland in Crimea", later the leadership of the Crimean region renamed it into the "Committee for deported peoples. Considering that the NDKT prepared the concept of an organized state return, the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people, naturally the formation of this body was entrusted to the national movement headed by Yuriy Bekirovich Osmanov.

Pribytkova's research also indicated that 52.1% of Crimean Tatars resettling in Crimea do not want to take loans to legally purchase real estate, which ultimately resulted in self-acquisitions of land belonging to other individuals and legal entities by the Crimean Tatars. This created both numerous conflicts with the new owners, from whom property was confiscated in this way, and a very serious legal problem of legalizing these actions. In Ukraine, this issue was not resolved. After the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, the Crimean Tatars, under the program developed by Sergey Aksenov, were offered to return the seized land plots, and in return the state would allocate land plots to the Crimean Tatars from its own property.

In 2014, the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin was issued on the rehabilitation of peoples in Crimea who fell under deportation. This Decree contained the assignment of the status of rehabilitated to the Crimean Tatars who found themselves in deportation, which, according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, means various payments and benefits to a person in such a status. In 2016, payments to Crimean Tatars amounted to 168 million rubles. True, it should be taken into account that the children of rehabilitated Crimean Tatars are entitled to benefits only if they were with their parents together in exile. This causes a rather complicated legal process of proving this fact. The second part of the decree of the President of the Russian Federation concerns the support of the Crimean Tatar language, which is implemented through support for teaching it in schools, as well as funding for Crimean Tatar museums, theaters and memorial days.

Changes in the ethnic composition of the Crimean population during the period of deportations

During the Second World War, opponents in the Crimea were intensively engaged in mutual deportations and even physical extermination of civilians, who were classified as hostile nations with mutual cruelty rather than a medieval level. If the result of the deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea was their almost complete disappearance from Crimea before the return in the 1990s, another significant influence on the change in the ethnic composition of Crimea was the genocide of Jews and Jews-Krymchaks in Crimea that preceded the deportation of Crimean Tatars. Einsatzgruppe "D" and collaborators, during which they killed more than 27,000 Jews and Jews were actually exterminated in the Crimea (see the Holocaust in Ukraine for more details). Also, the number of Russians in Crimea sharply decreased during the occupation of Crimea, if according to the 1939 census, 558,481 Russians lived in Crimea, then after the deportation of the Tatars from the Crimea, according to the census of the summer of 1944, only about 284,000 Russians remained from the Russians. The Russians accounted for the main loss of the Crimean population of 270,000, a significant part of which was associated with the deportation to work in Germany and extermination in the Krasnoy concentration camp with the participation of collaborators. Oleg Rodivilov, secretary of the public committee for perpetuating the memory of the victims of Nazism in the Krasny concentration camp, notes that there was also a Potato Town sorting center next to the concentration camp, through which 140,000 people passed, about 40,000 people were killed and up to 100,000 were deported mainly to work in Germany.

It should be noted that in addition to the Crimean Tatars, also during the deportation in June 1944, Crimean Armenians, Bulgarians and even such an ancient people of Crimea as the Greeks left Crimea. When analyzing the dramatic events in this period of time, it should be noted that the Crimean Germans left Crimea, who, according to Nazi propaganda, were presented as descendants of the Crimean Goths, although in fact they were German colonists who arrived in Crimea at the invitation of Catherine II. It should be noted that the civilization of the Crimean Goths was the ideological basis for the annexation of Crimea by Hitler in favor of Germany, who, despite flirting with collaborators, intended to deport Crimean Tatars and other peoples from Crimea and turn Crimea into a “pure” German colony, for which Rosenberg developed the necessary plan after victory over the USSR. In the face of the advance of the Red Army, most of the 50,000 Crimean Germans were evacuated from the Crimea and now live in Germany, and some were deported in 1941. The researchers note that since there were no official orders for such deportation, the deportation affected about 25% of the Germans.

As a result of deportations, the genocide of Jews, the outflow of Germans, the deportation of Russians to Germany, some areas (the mountains and the Southern coast of Crimea) were left practically without a population. Many areas of Crimea were actually empty. In order to establish the scale of population loss in the summer of 1944, a simplified census of the population of the peninsula was carried out. Which showed that only 379,000 people remained in Crimea, of which 75% are Russians, 21% Ukrainians and 4% other nationalities. At the same time, the 1939 census indicated that the housing stock and economy of the peninsula was designed for 1.2 million people. It was necessary to urgently replenish the losses of the population.

By a decision of August 18, 1944, in order to "promptly develop fertile lands, orchards and vineyards," the State Defense Committee recognized the need to resettle "conscientious and industrious collective farmers" in the Crimea from various regions of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR - a total of 51,000 people. The lands of the former Tatar, Bulgarian and other collective farms, from where “special resettlements were made in 1944, with existing crops and plantations”, were transferred to the newly organized collective farms of immigrants from the regions of Russia and Ukraine and were assigned to these collective farms for “perpetual use”. By December 1, 1944, 64,000 migrants arrived in Crimea. Resettlement to the Crimea was voluntary and potentially available to all citizens of the USSR by filling out a special questionnaire, which was then approved by the Regional Committees of the CPSU.

In 1944-1948, thousands of settlements (with the exception of Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoy, Ishuni, Sak), mountains and rivers of the peninsula, whose names were of Crimean Tatar origin, were replaced by Russian ones.

In the 1990s, Crimean Tatars began to return to Crimea. Since other people occupied their old areas of residence, this created the problem of self-seizure by Crimean Tatars of land plots. According to the latest censuses, the number of Crimean Tatars is about 10% of the population of Crimea. Also in the Crimea, the consequences of the national policy of the USSR towards the Tatars affected, where it was believed that the separation of the Crimean Tatars from the Tatars was artificial and was a relic of the Ottoman Empire (this was partly done to reduce Turkey's influence in the Crimea). Therefore, in the USSR, actions were taken to organize the national autonomy of all Tatars on the basis of Tatarstan and it was proposed to the Crimean Tatars to move there if they wished. At the same time, it was ignored that although the Tatar and Crimean Tatar languages ​​are very similar, since they were formed from the Kypchak group of the Old Tatar language, which died out only in the 19th century, nevertheless, the modern forms of the languages ​​differ.

The censuses conducted after the transfer of Crimea to Russian control indicate that 2% of the population of Crimea declare themselves "Tatars" and not "Crimean Tatars." These are different peoples by language and origin, and adherents of pan-Turkism call themselves Tatars, including followers of Ismail Gasprinskiy, who believe that the larger community of Turkic peoples is much more important. A fairly large increase in the number of people who claim to be Tatars, who do not consider themselves Crimean Tatars, has caused great discussions among experts. A significant part of the experts tend to believe that it is likely that many Crimean Tatars by mistake during the census indicated themselves as simply Tatars. According to the census, 45,000 people indicated their nationality as "Tatar", and 232,000 people who claim to be "Crimean Tatars".

Recognition of repression

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 493 of September 5, 1967 “On citizens of Tatar nationality living in Crimea” recognized that “after the liberation of Crimea from 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".

On November 15, 1989, the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and other peoples was condemned by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and recognized as illegal and criminal.

After the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation

Memory

Monument to the victims of deportation in Sudak. Sculptor Ilmi Ametov.

Memorial complex in memory of the victims of deportation in the area of ​​the railway station "Siren" in the Bakhchisarai region of Crimea.

In art

In 2013, the events of May 1944 formed the basis of the feature film directed by Akhtem Seytablaev "Khaitarma" ("Return"). The protagonist of the picture is a military fighter pilot, guard major, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Amet-Khan Sultan.

On May 14, 2016, the Ukrainian singer Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with a song about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars.

see also

	Wikinews on the topic Deportation of the Crimean Tatars:

Notes

1. Boogie N. Deportation of peoples / War and society. 1941-1945. - Prince. second. - M.: Nauka, 2004.
2. “... It is impossible not to note that a significant part of the Tatar population expresses a desire to return to Crimea.” To the 35th anniversary of the Decree of the Presidium Supreme Soviet USSR “On citizens of Tatar nationality, living in Crimea”
3. Declaration of the Supreme Soviet USSR “On the recognition illegal and criminal repressive acts against peoples subjected to forcible resettlement and ensuring their rights”
4. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated April 21, 2014 No. 268 "On measures" for the rehabilitation of the Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Crimean Tatar and German peoples and state support for their revival and development”, Kremlin.ru (21 April 2014). Retrieved 20 January 2016.
5. Provision of genocide Crimean Tatar people vіd 12.11.2015  No. 792-VIII
6. State Defense Committee to Comrade STALIN I.V. (May 10, 1944) | No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten (indefinite) . 2w.su. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
7. Under Simferopol, on the site of the concentration camp, in the former state farm "Krasny", a memorial complex (indefinite) . www.c-inform.info. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
8. Crimea under fifth Hitler. German occupation policy in Crimea 1941-1944 . - Romanko Oleg (indefinite) . www.e-reading.club. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
9. Gulnara Bekirova. Crimean Tatar national movement in 50-60s : formation, first victories and disappointments.
10. d.h.s. Yuri Zhukov, Leading Researcher . "Lessons GULAG in school timetable". "Literary newspaper" No. 50 (6304), December 8, 2010
11. Romanko O. V Crimea 1941-44 Occupation and collaborationism. Simferopol, 2005
12. Maxx Email: [email protected]. Crimean Tatars during the Great Patriotic War. History Evpatoria. From Kerkinitida to our days. Kerkinitida,  Gezlev,  Evpatoria. History of the resort town (indefinite) . www.evpatoriya-history.info. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
13. Crimean Tatars: not deportation, but resettlement as needed (indefinite) . Center for Political Analysis. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
14. Deportation Crimean Tatars in questions and answers - BBC Russian service(Russian). BBC Russian service. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
15. Did Türkiye plan an attack on the USSR during World War II? (indefinite) . islam-today.ru Retrieved May 21, 2016.
16. The Deportation and Fate of the Crimean Tatars (indefinite) . www.iccrimea.org. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
17. SNK RSFSR. Criminal Code of the RSFSR. - Ripol Classic, 2013-01-01. - 257 p. - ISBN 9785458385268 .
18. Decree GKO  No. 5859-ss  "On Crimean Tatars" (indefinite) . www.memorial.krsk.ru Retrieved May 21, 2016.
19. Deportation of peoples // Nikolai Bugai (indefinite) . scepsis.net. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
20. Dagdzhi T. Sh. Stalin's genocide and ethnocide of the Crimean Tatar people. Documents, facts, comments. Simferopol 2008 . ISBN 978-966-2913-67-5
21. Gulnara Bekirova. Crimean Tatars. 1941-1991 (Experience in political history). Volume 1. Simferopol 2008. ISBN 978-966-470-011-2
22. Deportation of the Crimean Tatars on May 18, 1944. How it was (memories of the deported). Compiled by: Refat Kurtiev. Simferopol, Odzhak, 2004. ISBN 966-8535-14-6
23. Deportation of the Crimean Tatars on May 18, 1944. How it was (memories of the deported). Part two. Compiled by: Refat Kurtiev. Simferopol, Odzhak, 2005. ISBN 966-8535-29-4
24. Strategic defense. 1941-1942  And in this time in rear… Resettlement | Krasnoyarsk-Berlin (indefinite) . pobeda.krskstate.ru. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
25. G. Bekirova. Crimean Tatar problem in the USSR (1944-1991). Simferopol, Odzhak, 2004 ISBN 966-8535-06-5
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27. Car-car, tears and flowers (indefinite) . www.gazetacrimea.ru. Retrieved June 12, 2016.
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30. Hunger 1947 in USSR (indefinite) . www.hist.msu.ru Retrieved May 22, 2016.

On May 11, 1944, shortly after the liberation of Crimea, Joseph Stalin signed the Decree of the USSR State Defense Committee No. GOKO-5859:

“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 for the forcible secession of Crimea from the Soviet Union with the help of the German armed forces.

In view of 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 draft animals - by the USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture, pedigree cattle - 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 this year. d. 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 of property, livestock, grain and agricultural products left by them in places of eviction from special settlers, send to the place a commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR consisting of: chairman of the commission comrade Gritsenko (deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR) and members of the commission - comrade Krestyaninov (member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture USSR), comrade Nadyarnykh (member of the collegium of the NKMiMP), comrade Pustovalov (member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Education of the USSR), comrade Kabanov (deputy people's commissar of state farms of the USSR), comrade Gusev (member of the collegium of the USSR NKFin).
To oblige the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (comrade Benediktov), ​​the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR (comrade Subbotina), the People's Commissariat of Ministers and MPs of the USSR (comrade Smirnov), the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR (comrade Lobanov) to send livestock, grain and agricultural products from special settlers, in agreement with Comrade Gritsenko , in the Crimea, the required number of workers;

c) oblige the NKPS (comrade Kaganovich) 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 (comrade Miterev) to 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 (Comrade Lyubimov) 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 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 factory 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 p. to 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. To oblige the Agricultural Bank (comrade Kravtsov) 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. Oblige the People's Commissariat of the USSR (comrade Subbotin) to allocate flour, cereals and vegetables to the SNK of the Uzbek SSR for distribution to special settlers during June-August of this year. g. monthly in equal amounts, according to Appendix No. 2.
Issuance of flour, cereals and vegetables to special settlers during June-August of this year. d. to produce free of charge, in payment for the agricultural products and livestock accepted from them in the places of eviction.

6. To oblige NPOs (comrade Khrulyova) to transfer during May-June with. d. to strengthen the vehicles 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, Willis vehicles - 100 pieces and trucks - 250 pieces that have come out of repair.

7. To oblige Glavneftesnab (comrade Shirokov) 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. To oblige Glavsnabless under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (comrade Lopukhov) 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 this year. G.; transportation of NKPS boards to be carried out by one's own means.

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

The draft decision was prepared by a member of the State Defense Committee, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria. The deputies of the people's commissars for state security and internal affairs B. Z. Kobulov and I. A. Serov were entrusted with leading the deportation operation.

The bulk of the Crimean Tatar collaborators were evacuated by the occupying authorities to Germany, where the Tatar Mountain Jaeger Regiment of the SS was created from them. Most of those who remained in the Crimea were identified by the NKVD in April-May 1944 and condemned as traitors to the Motherland. In total, about 5,000 collaborators of all nationalities were identified in Crimea during this period.

The deportation operation began early in the morning on May 18 and ended on May 20, 1944. For its implementation, the NKVD troops were involved (more than 32 thousand people). The deportees had very little time to pack. Officially, each family had the right to take up to 500 kg of luggage with them, but in reality they were allowed to take much less, and sometimes nothing at all. After that, the deportees were taken by trucks to the railway stations.

On May 20, Serov and Kobulov reported in a telegram addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria:

“We hereby report that, launched in accordance with your instructions on May 18 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 echelons, of which 63 echelons numbering 173,287 people. sent to their destinations, the remaining 4 trains will also be sent today.

In addition, the district military commissars of the Crimea mobilized 6,000 Tatars of military 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.”

For complicity with the Nazis, they could generally be shot.

May 18 marked the 65th anniversary of the resettlement of Tatars from the territory of Crimea after accusing them of mass desertion and collaboration with the Nazis. Specialist-
the operation took two days and ended by the evening of May 20, 1944. 180 thousand people with all their belongings were taken out of the Crimea and settled in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated and allowed to return to their homeland only in 1989. Since then, the Crimea has become feverish again, and the descendants of the traitors are demanding more and more compensation for the damage caused to them by the "bloody Stalinist regime." We are talking about the infamous fact of our history with Andrei GONCHAROV, Academician, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

- Andrei Pavlovich, this year marks the 65th anniversary of the so-called Stalinist deportation of the Crimean Tatars and other peoples. What do you think prompted the leadership of the USSR to take this step in 1944?
- I'm already tired of proving that these were completely logical and fair actions in relation to traitors to the Motherland and fascist henchmen. At the same time, the humanism of the Soviet government in relation to the bandits who faithfully served the Fuhrer should be noted.
According to the laws of wartime, according to Article 193-22 of the then Criminal Code of the RSFSR, our command had every right to shoot, of course, not all the people, but the entire male population of the so-called Crimean Tatars for desertion and treason!
- Well, that's too much!
- The facts show that practically the entire Crimean Tatar population of military age came out on the side of Nazi Germany. As soon as the front approached the Crimea, the vast majority of the population began to go over to the side of the enemy.
There are amazing, vividly commenting on those events data. So, in the purely Crimean Tatar village of Koush, 130 people were drafted into the Red Army, of which 122 returned home after the arrival of the Germans. In the village of Beshui
98 called back 92 people. A perfect example of "patriotism", isn't it? So what are you going to do with them?

Crimean Tatars - sworn brothers of the German people

And what were the goals of the Tatar population of Crimea? It’s not just that they suddenly became traitors to the Motherland, and even at such a terrible hour for the country.
- This is clearly stated in one document of those years.
In May 1943, one of the oldest Crimean Tatar nationalists Amet Ozenbashly drafted a memorandum addressed to Hitler, in which he outlined the following program of cooperation between Germany and the Crimean Tatars:
1. Creation of the Tatar state in the Crimea under the protectorate of Germany. 2. Creation on the basis of battalions of "noise" and other police units of the Tatar national army. 3. Return to Crimea of ​​all Tatars from Turkey, Bulgaria and other states; “cleansing” of Crimea from other nationalities. 4. Arming the entire Tatar population, including the very old, until the final victory over the Bolsheviks. 5. Guardianship of Germany over the Tatar state until it can "stand on its feet."
I hope everything is clear? Noise Battalions are auxiliary police formations.
Here are some more excerpts from one documentary to complete the picture - congratulations from the members of the Simferopol Muslim Committee to Hitler on his birthday on April 20
1942:
“To the liberator of the oppressed peoples, to the faithful son of the German people, Adolf Hitler.

With the advent of the valiant sons of Greater Germany from the very first days, with your blessing and in memory of our long-term friendship, we Muslims stood shoulder to shoulder with the German people, took up arms and swore, ready to fight to the last drop of blood for the universal human ideas - the destruction of the red Jewish-Bolshevik plague without a trace and to the end ...
... On the day of your glorious anniversary, we send you our heartfelt greetings and wishes, we wish you many years of fruitful life for the joy of your people, to us, Crimean Muslims and Muslims of the East.
Similar glorifications of the fascist monsters are repeated in abundance in the then national media. For example, Azat Krym (Free Crimea), which was published from January 11, 1942 until the very end of the occupation, wrote on March 20, 1943:
“To the great Hitler - the liberator of all peoples and religions - we Tatars give our word to fight the herd of Jews and Bolsheviks together with the German soldiers in the same ranks! God bless you, our great Herr Hitler!"
- Andrei Pavlovich, but this is pure treason to the Motherland?
- Certainly. And what began after the occupation of the Crimea by the Germans does not lend itself to common sense at all! The Tatar-Crimean traitors, organized by the Nazis into numerous detachments, are conducting a real hunt for partisans. They destroy their bases, track down and crack down on the underground, hunt for Jews and hand over to the SS authorities. Here is what the field marshal writes 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 Yayla mountains. The reason why a powerful partisan movement unfolded in Crimea from the very beginning, which gave us a lot of trouble, was that among the population of Crimea, in addition to Tatars and other small national groups, there were still many Russians.
One can cite thousands of examples of the atrocities of the Crimean Tatars. And sometimes even the Germans and Italians, who seized the Crimea, were forced to slow down their exorbitant, even for the Nazis, cruelty. Crimeans captured and burned alive Soviet paratroopers and partisans. There are documents confirming these facts. So, in the Sudak region in 1942, a reconnaissance landing of the Red Army was liquidated by the Tatar self-defense group, while 12 Soviet paratroopers were caught and burned alive by the self-defenders.

On February 4, 1943, Crimean Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshui and Koush captured four partisans from the detachment Mukovnina. The partisans were stabbed with bayonets, laid on fires and burned. The corpse of a Kazan Tatar was especially disfigured Kiyamova, whom the punishers apparently mistook for their fellow countryman. That is, a traitor in their fight against the Red Army.
Here is a quote from the memorandum of the deputy head of the special department of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement Popova dated July 25, 1942:
“Participants of the partisan movement in the Crimea were living witnesses of the massacres of the Tatar volunteers and their owners over the captured sick and wounded partisans (murders, burning of the sick and wounded). In a number of cases, the Tatars were more merciless and more professional than the fascist executioners.
The tactic of demining roads is well known, when, under Crimean Tatar supervision, a crowd of prisoners was forced to comb minefields. Can you imagine this horror?
- Did the Crimean Tatars themselves participate in the partisan struggle?
- Just don't laugh: on June 1, 1943, a partisan underground consisting of 262 people, including six Crimean Tatars, operated in the Crimea.
There is not much to add here. Oh yes, here's an amazing fact. After the defeat of the 6th German army Paulus near Stalingrad, the Feodosia Muslim Committee collected one million rubles from the Tatars to help the German army. Well, like ordinary Soviet people who gave their last pennies for the construction of tanks and aircraft.
True, it should be said that with the onset of the Soviet Army, the Crimean Tatars realized that the inevitable retribution could not be avoided, and in February-March 1944 they began to join partisan detachments. Moreover, entire detachments of punishers and concentration camp guards tried to attach themselves to our heroes. Another part fled with the Germans and for some time was used by the SS troops in Hungary and France.

The resettlement of peoples was invented in the USA

“But still, deporting an entire nation is cruel. There were also many innocent people there.
- I am by no means a supporter of Stalinism. In my family, as in many families in Russia, there are victims of repression. But then there was a war. Leaving behind 200,000 people who are ready to betray at any moment is criminal! Moreover, the deportation of peoples on a national basis is by no means the know-how of the Stalinist regime, as the perestroika "democrats" assured us. During the same World War II, only earlier - in 1941, a couple of months after Pearl Harbor, the Americans quite calmly deported to the interior of the country and put about 200 thousand of their citizens of Japanese, German and Italian origin in concentration camps. The Japanese were charged, you know what? The fact that they plant flower beds in California specifically next to military facilities in order to declassify them, and in Hawaii they cut down sugar cane in a special way, in the form of giant arrows directed towards US air bases, to signal Japanese pilots! A couple of months ago there were hearings in the US Congress, where the children of repressed American citizens of German and Italian origin spoke. So there one woman told, they say, her father sat down for many years just because he said: under Hitler, good roads were built in Germany! By the way, in those same years there was a generally insane practice of capturing the Japanese by the Americans. En masse, by families throughout Latin America. They were placed in concentration camps and kept for a future possible exchange for American prisoners of war.

There was such a case. Expecting a Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands,
In 1941, the Americans considered the Eskimos unreliable and immediately took out all - 400 with a small number of innocent Aborigines to the Kansas desert. And this despite the fact that the foot of the aggressors did not set foot on the territory of the United States at all! And in our version? When the Crimean Tatars openly sided with the enemy, what would you order to do with them?
As for the many times repeated lies about the incredible cruelty of the Red Army during the deportation itself, look at the documents. It's simple, the archives are open. Just imagine: there is a war, part of the country has been captured by the enemy, the food situation is terrible. And at the same time, each deportee was entitled to hot food on the road,
500 grams of bread a day, meat, fish, fats. By order of Stalin, the Crimean Tatars were allowed to take with them up to 500 kg of property for each adult! Certificates were issued for other abandoned property, according to which an equivalent property was issued at the place of arrival in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In addition, each family was given a significant interest-free loan for seven years for the arrangement.
- Stalin, it turns out you, was almost a benefactor for the Crimean Tatars.
- Yes, they should pray for him! He saved them from righteous popular wrath, from pogroms. Just imagine: during the German occupation, the Tatar police units gathered more than 50,000 Russian residents of Crimea to be deported to Germany! Plus the inhuman atrocities that they did against their neighbors. What would the Crimean front-line soldiers who returned from Berlin in 1945 do with them for this - fathers, brothers and sons of Soviet citizens torn to pieces by them, given into slavery ?! There would be nothing left of the Crimean Tatars.
By the way, it should be noted that the Crimean Tatars carry their name "Tatars" by misunderstanding. In fact, they have nothing in common ethnically with historical Tatars or Tatar-Mongols.

Hitler wanted to move the Baltic states to Siberia

Andrey Pavlovich, there is one more date this year. In March 1949, Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of Balts to Siberia.
Where are hundreds of thousands from? You just listened to NATO propaganda. 60 years ago, 20,173 people were deported from Estonia, 31,917 people from Lithuania, 42,149 people from Latvia. These NKVD-NKGB archives have long been in the public domain. At the same time, during the Khrushchev thaw in 1959, all the Balts, unlike the Crimean Tatars, were allowed to return home.
Now let's find out who these people were and why they were expelled. The so-called forest brothers and members of their families were deported. And they were expelled not because they collaborated with the Nazis, it seemed to be forgiven them, but for participation in gangs that remained on the territory of the Baltic states after the defeat of the German troops. During the period from 1945 to 1949, these "forest brothers" were killed: in Lithuania - 25,108, in Latvia - 4780, in Estonia - 891 people.
- I read that during the years of the war in the Baltic States, following the example of Germany, almost all Jews were destroyed.
- And not by the SS, but by the local police. According to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Regions, a total of about 120,000 Jews.
- Why did they curry favor with the Germans?
- They hoped that Hitler would allow them to create their own states. Many rabid nationalists still believe that this would have happened if not for the “Soviet occupation” in 1944. But Germany's plans for the Baltics were completely different. Many documents on this subject have been published in a recently published book. Igor Pykhalov Why did Stalin evict peoples? Thus, in Berlin, at a meeting on Germanization in the Baltic countries, it was decided: “The majority of the population is not suitable for Germanization. Racially undesirable parts of the population should be deported to Western Siberia.” In Estonia, it was supposed to leave 50 percent of the population, in Lithuania and Latvia - 30 percent each. In return, it was supposed to resettle Wehrmacht veterans in the Baltic states.
Slowly, this policy has already begun to be implemented. By November 1, 1943, 35 thousand German colonists already lived in the Baltic states. And instead of Siberia, 300 thousand Balts, mostly women from 17 to 40 years old, were sent to German labor camps.
- It turns out that the Baltic republics, following the Crimean Tatars, should be grateful to Stalin. If Hitler got them, farms would still be built in the depths of the Siberian ores.
- That's it. I hope the truth will someday reach the Baltics, everything is slowly reaching them. And then people will throw rotten tomatoes at the Estonian SS veterans marching in the center of Tallinn, to whom the "bloody tyrant" Stalin, out of his kindness, left his life.

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 the 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.