After the retreat, the Nazis took some of the collaborators with them to Germany. Subsequently, a special SS regiment was formed from their number. Another part (5,381 people) were arrested by security officers after the liberation of the peninsula. During the arrests, many weapons were seized. The government feared an armed revolt of the Tatars because of their proximity to Turkey (Hitler hoped to drag the latter into a war with the communists).

According to the research of the Russian scientist, history professor Oleg Romanko, during the war, 35 thousand Crimean Tatars helped the fascists in one way or another: they served in the German police, participated in executions, betrayed communists, etc. For this, even distant relatives of traitors were entitled to exile and confiscation of property.

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

Even those who did not contribute to the Nazis in any way were sent into exile. At the same time, 15% of Tatar men fought along with other Soviet citizens in the Red Army. In the partisan detachments, 16% were Tatars. Their families were also deported. This mass participation precisely reflected Stalin’s fears that the Crimean Tatars might succumb to pro-Turkish sentiments, rebel and find themselves on the side of the enemy.

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

Painting by Rustem Eminov.

By decision of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. GOKO-5859 dated May 11, 1944 on the eviction of all Crimean Tatars from the territory of Crimea, which he personally signed Joseph Stalin, from the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to Uzbekistan and neighboring areas of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan was resettled over 180 thousand Crimean Tatars. Small groups were also sent to the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and a number of other regions of the RSFSR.

The draft decision of the State Defense Committee was prepared by its member, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria. Deputy People's Commissars of State Security and Internal Affairs were entrusted with leading the deportation operation Bogdan Kobulov And Ivan Serov.

Officially, the deportation of the Crimean Tatars was justified by the facts of their participation in collaborationist formations that acted on the side of Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War.

The decision of the State Defense Committee accused “many Crimean Tatars” of treason, desertion from the Red Army units defending Crimea, going over to the enemy’s side, joining “volunteer Tatar military units” formed by the Germans, participating in German punitive detachments, “brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans”, assistance to the German occupiers “in organizing the forcible abduction of Soviet citizens into German slavery”, cooperation with the German occupation forces, the creation of “Tatar national committees”, the use by the Germans “for the purpose of sending spies and saboteurs to the rear of the Red Army.”

The Crimean Tatars, who were evacuated from Crimea before it was occupied by the Germans and managed to return from evacuation in April-May 1944, were also subject to deportation. They did not live under occupation and could not participate in collaborationist formations.

Deportation operation began early in the morning of May 18 and ended at 16:00 on May 20, 1944. To carry it out, they involved NKVD troops in quantity more 32 thousand people.

The deportees were given anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour to get ready, after which they were transported by truck to the railway stations. From there, trains under escort were sent to places of exile. According to eyewitnesses, those who resisted or could not go were sometimes shot on the spot.

The transfer to the settlement sites lasted about a month and was accompanied by mass deaths of the deportees. The dead were hastily buried next to the railroad tracks or not buried at all.

According to official data 191 people died along the way. More from 25% to 46.2% of Crimean Tatars died in 1944-1945 from hunger and disease due to the lack of normal living conditions.

In the Uzbek SSR only for 6 months of 1944, that is, from the moment of arrival until the end of the year, died 16,052 Crimean Tatars (10,6 %).

In 1945-1946, more were exiled to places of deportation 8,995 Crimean Tatars are war veterans.

In 1944-1948, thousands of settlements (with the exception of Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoy, Ishuni, Sak and Sudak), mountains and rivers of the peninsula, the names of which were of Crimean Tatar origin, were.

For 12 years, until 1956, the Crimean Tatars had the status of special settlers, which implied various restrictions on their rights. All special settlers were registered and were required to register with the commandant's offices.

Formally, the special settlers retained their civil rights: they had the right to participate in elections.

Unlike many other deported peoples of the USSR, who returned to their homeland in the late 1950s, the Crimean Tatars were formally deprived of this right until 1974, and in fact - until 1989.

IN November 1989 The Supreme Soviet of the USSR condemned the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and declared it illegal and criminal.

The mass return of people to Crimea began only at the end of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”.

Irina Simonenko

Every year on May 18, Crimean Tatars celebrate the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Deportation. Through the efforts of Ukrainian political strategists and their curators, from the original day of grief of the deportation of the Crimean peoples, this day methodically and purposefully turned into the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the exclusively Crimean Tatar, “punished without guilt” people.

The words of Petro Poroshenko are especially cynical: “We are obliged to give the Crimean Tatars the right to self-determination within the framework of a single Ukrainian state. This is what we owe the Crimean Tatars. The Ukrainian authorities should have done this at least 20 years ago. And now the situation would be completely different.”

By the way, no matter how much the “representatives” of the Kyiv Crimean Tatars ask and plead, they will never receive that same definition. For Kyiv, these people have always been a tool for manipulation. And in the entire history of Ukraine, things have not gone beyond promises, only time after time “the need to amend Section 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine is emphasized,” but in reality this will never be allowed.

Ukraine consists of different regions that once belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Turkey, and the Russian Empire. And if the Crimean Tatars receive self-determination, which the Guarantor of the Constitution enthusiastically talks about every May 18, then they are quite capable of wanting the same “autonomy” in Transcarpathia. And there, further along the chain, Square may lose all its lands.

Ukrainian politicians continue to lead the Crimean Tatar people by the nose by promising their land, their government and mountains of gold. But even on paper, they still do not want to formalize such changes in relation to the already lost territory of Crimea, postponing the adoption of the document for another year, two, three. And so on ad infinitum.

Today, the number of historical hoaxes associated with the “Stalinist expulsion of peoples” is only growing and bottom experts are already calling it “planned genocide.”

It will not be superfluous to understand this issue. What were the reasons for the deportation? What actually happened on the territory of Crimea during the war? There are very few living witnesses of those events left who could tell how everything really happened. But what many eyewitnesses tell, and what is recorded in Soviet and German chronicles is enough to understand that resettlement was the only and most correct decision.

I would like to immediately dot the i's - I in no way want to say that all Crimean Tatars are bad. Many Crimean Tatars valiantly defended the common Soviet Motherland in the ranks of the Red Army, in the ranks of the Crimean partisans they turned the life of German and Romanian Nazis in Crimea into hell, thousands were awarded state awards. Their exploits deserve a separate post. Here, I want to understand why what happened happened.

The deportation was justified by the facts of the people's participation in collaborationist formations that acted on the side of Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War.

Of the 200,000 total Crimean Tatar population, 20,000 became fighters in the Wehrmacht, punitive detachments, and in other ways went into the service of the German occupiers, that is, almost all men of military age, as evidenced by the reports of the German command. How would they get along with the Red Army soldiers returning from the front, what would the war veterans do with them if they learned about what the Tatar punitive forces did in the Crimea during the German occupation? A massacre would begin, and resettlement was the only way out of this situation. But there was something to take revenge on the Red Army soldiers for, and this is not Soviet propaganda; there are plenty of facts about their atrocities from both the Soviet and German sides.

Thus, in the Sudak region in 1942, a group of Tatar self-defenses liquidated a reconnaissance landing of the Red Army, while the self-defenses caught and burned alive 12 Soviet paratroopers.

On February 4, 1943, Crimean Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshui and Koush captured four partisans from S.A. Mukovnin’s detachment.

Partisans L.S. Chernov, V.F. Gordienko, G.K. Sannikov and Kh.K. Kiyamov were brutally killed: stabbed with bayonets, laid on fires and burned. Particularly disfigured was the corpse of the Kazan Tatar Kh.K. Kiyamov, whom the punishers apparently mistook for their fellow countryman.

The Crimean Tatar detachments dealt equally brutally with the civilian population. It got to the point that, fleeing the massacre, the Russian-speaking population turned to the German authorities for help.

Beginning in the spring of 1942, a concentration camp operated on the territory of the Krasny state farm, in which at least 8 thousand residents of Crimea were tortured and shot during the occupation.

The concentration camp was the largest fascist concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of Crimea, in which about 8 thousand Soviet citizens were tortured during the years of occupation.

The German administration was represented by a commandant and a doctor.

All other functions were carried out by soldiers of the 152nd Tatar volunteer battalion, whom the head of the camp, SS Oberscharführer Speckmann, recruited to perform “the dirtiest work.”

With particular pleasure, the future “innocent victims of Stalin’s repressions” mocked the ideologically incorrect prisoners. With their cruelty, they were reminiscent of the Tatar horde of the distant past, and were distinguished by a particularly “creative” approach to the issue of exterminating prisoners. In particular, mothers and children were repeatedly drowned in pits with feces dug under camp toilets.

Mass burning was also practiced: living people tied with barbed wire were stacked in several tiers, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Eyewitnesses claim that “those who lay below were the luckiest” - they were suffocating under the weight of human bodies even before the execution.

For their service to the Germans, many hundreds of punishers from among the Crimean Tatars were awarded special insignia approved by Hitler - “For courage and special merits shown by the population of the liberated regions who participated in the fight against Bolshevism under the leadership of the German command.”

Thus, according to the report of the Simferopol Muslim Committee, for 12/01/1943 - 01/31/1944:

“For services to the Tatar people, the German command was awarded: a badge with swords of the second degree, issued for the liberated eastern regions, the chairman of the Simferopol Tatar Committee Dzhemil Abdureshid, a badge of the second degree, the Chairman of the Department of Religion Abdul-Aziz Gafar, an employee of the Department of Religion Fazil Sadyk and the Chairman of the Tatar Table Tahsin Cemil."

Dzhemil Abdureshid took an active part in the creation of the Simferopol Committee at the end of 1941 and, as the first chairman of the committee, was active in attracting volunteers into the ranks of the German army.

In a response speech, the chairman of the Tatar committee, Cemil Abdureshid, said the following:

“I speak on behalf of the committee and on behalf of all Tatars, confident that I express their thoughts. One conscription of the German army is enough and every last one of the Tatars will come out to fight against the common enemy. We are honored to have the opportunity to fight under the leadership of Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, the greatest son of the German people. The faith that lies within us gives us the strength to trust the leadership of the German army without hesitation. Our names will later be honored along with the names of those who spoke out for the liberation of oppressed peoples.”

April 10, 1942. From a message to Adolf Hitler, received at a prayer service by more than 500 Muslims in Karasu Bazar:

"Our liberator! It is only thanks to you, your help and thanks to the courage and dedication of your troops that we were able to open our houses of worship and perform prayer services in them. Now there is not and cannot be such a force that would separate us from the German people and from you. The Tatar people swore and gave their word, having signed up as volunteers in the ranks of the German troops, hand in hand with your troops to fight against the enemy to the last drop of blood. Your victory is a victory for the entire Muslim world. We pray to God for the health of your troops and ask God to give you, the great liberator of nations, long life. You are now a liberator, the leader of the Muslim world - gases Adolf Hitler.

Our ancestors came from the East, and until now we were waiting for liberation from there, but today we are witnesses that liberation is coming to us from the West. Perhaps for the first and only time in history it happened that the sun of freedom rose in the West. This sun is you, our great friend and leader, with your mighty German people, and you, relying on the inviolability of the great German state, on the unity and power of the German people, bring us, the oppressed Muslims, freedom. We swore an oath of allegiance to you to die for you with honor and weapons in our hands and only in the fight against a common enemy.

We are confident that together with you we will achieve the complete liberation of our peoples from the yoke of Bolshevism.

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, us, the Crimean Muslims and the Muslims of the East."

Abdul-Aziz Gafar and Fazil Sadyk, despite their advanced years, worked among volunteers and did significant work to establish religious affairs in the Simferopol region.

Tahsin Cemil organized the Tatar Table in 1942 and, working as its chairman until the end of 1943, provided systematic assistance to “needy Tatars and families of volunteers.”

In addition, the personnel of the Crimean Tatar formations were provided with all sorts of material benefits and privileges. According to one of the resolutions of the Wehrmacht High Command, “any person who actively fought or is fighting against the partisans and Bolsheviks” could submit a petition for “the allotment of land or the payment of a monetary reward of up to 1000 rubles.”

At the same time, his family had to receive a monthly subsidy from the social security departments of the city or district administration in the amount of 75 to 250 rubles.

After the publication of the “Law on the New Agrarian Order” by the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions on February 15, 1942, all Tatars who joined volunteer formations and their families were given full ownership of 2 hectares of land. The Germans provided them with the best plots, taking land from peasants who did not join these formations.

As noted in the already quoted memorandum of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, State Security Major Karanadze, to the NKVD of the USSR “On the political and moral state of the population of Crimea”:

“Persons who are members of volunteer groups are in a particularly privileged position. All of them receive wages, food, are exempt from taxes, received the best plots of fruit and grape gardens, tobacco plantations, taken away from the rest of the non-Tatar population.

Volunteers are given items looted from the Jewish population.”

All these horrors are not the invention of Soviet political instructors, but the bitter truth. You can give many more examples of the “innocence of the Crimean Tatars,” but this article is not about that.

The whole problem is that modern Tatars are not obliged to bear the stigma of traitors until the end of their days, because they were not even born then. Likewise, modern Russians have nothing to do with the deportation of the Tatars. We all need to move on, live in peace and harmony. And to do this, we need to stop crying about our long-suffering past, and think about our common future. Russian Tatars and Ukrainians must develop the economy of Crimea together, stop taking skeletons out of closets, blaming each other for what their neighbor’s great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather did.

In the meantime, every May 18th, the Crimean Tatars provide an excellent occasion for all sorts of speculation on the part of the Ukrainian Mejlis and their curators in Ukraine and further to the west, and thanks to their position as “offended and oppressed,” they are used as a bargaining chip to create instability in the region.

On May 18-20, 1944, NKVD soldiers, on orders from Moscow, rounded up almost the entire Tatar population of Crimea to railway cars and sent them towards Uzbekistan in 70 trains
This forced removal of the Tatars, whom the Soviet government accused of collaborating with the Nazis, was one of the fastest deportations carried out in world history.

How did the Tatars live in Crimea before the deportation?

After the creation of the USSR in 1922, Moscow recognized the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous population of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the indigenization policy.

In the 1920s, the Tatars were allowed to develop their culture. Crimean Tatar newspapers, magazines were published in Crimea, educational institutions, museums, libraries and theaters operated.

The Crimean Tatar language, together with Russian, was the official language of the autonomy. It was used by more than 140 village councils.

In the 1920-1930s, Tatars made up 25-30% of the total population of Crimea.

However, in the 1930s, Soviet policy towards the Tatars, as well as other nationalities of the USSR, became repressive.

Crimean Tatar State Ensemble "Haitarma". Moscow, 1935

First, the dispossession and eviction of the Tatars to the north of Russia and beyond the Urals began. Then came forced collectivization, the Holodomor of 1932-33, and the purges of the intelligentsia in 1937-1938.

This turned many Crimean Tatars against Soviet rule.

When did the deportation take place?

The main phase of the forced relocation occurred over the course of less than three days, beginning at dawn on May 18, 1944 and ending at 16:00 on May 20.

In total, 238.5 thousand people were deported from Crimea - almost the entire Crimean Tatar population.

For this, the NKVD recruited more than 32 thousand fighters.

What caused the deportation?

The official reason for the forced relocation was the accusation of the entire Crimean Tatar people of high treason, “mass extermination of Soviet people” and collaboration - collaboration with the Nazi occupiers.

Such arguments were contained in the decision of the State Defense Committee on deportation, which appeared a week before the start of the evictions.

However, historians name other, unofficial reasons for the relocation. Among them is the fact that the Crimean Tatars historically had close ties with Turkey, which the USSR at the time viewed as a potential rival.

Spouses in the Urals, 1953

In the USSR's plans, Crimea was a strategic springboard in the event of a possible conflict with Turkey, and Stalin wanted to be safe from possible “saboteurs and traitors,” whom he considered the Tatars.

This theory is supported by the fact that other Muslim ethnic groups were also resettled from the Caucasian regions adjacent to Turkey: Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Balkars.

Did the Tatars support the Nazis?

Between nine and 20 thousand Crimean Tatars served in the anti-Soviet combat units formed by the German authorities, writes historian Jonathan Otto Pohl.

Some of them sought to protect their villages from Soviet partisans, who, according to the Tatars themselves, often persecuted them on ethnic grounds.

Other Tatars joined the German forces because they had been captured by the Nazis and wanted to alleviate the harsh conditions in prison camps in Simferopol and Nikolaev.

At the same time, 15% of the adult male Crimean Tatar population fought on the side of the Red Army. During the deportation, they were demobilized and sent to labor camps in Siberia and the Urals.

In May 1944, most of those who served in German units retreated to Germany. Mostly wives and children who remained on the peninsula were deported.

How did the forced relocation take place?

NKVD employees entered Tatar homes and announced to the owners that because of treason to their homeland they were being evicted from Crimea.

They gave us 15-20 minutes to pack our things. 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.

Mari ASSR. Crew at the logging site. 1950

People were transported by trucks to railway stations. From there, almost 70 trains with tightly closed freight cars, crowded with people, were sent east.

About eight thousand people died during the move, most of whom were children and elderly people. The most common causes of death are thirst and typhus.

Some people, unable to bear the suffering, went crazy. All the property left in Crimea after the Tatars was appropriated by the state.

Where were the Tatars deported?

Most of the Tatars were sent to Uzbekistan and neighboring regions of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Small groups of people ended up in the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Urals and the Kostroma region of Russia.

What were the consequences of deportation for the Tatars?

In the first three years after the resettlement, according to various estimates, from 20 to 46% of all deportees died from hunger, exhaustion and disease.

Almost half of those who died in the first year were children under 16 years of age.

Due to a lack of clean water, poor hygiene, and lack of medical care, malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and other diseases spread among the deportees.

Alime Ilyasova (right) with a friend whose name is unknown. Early 1940s

The new arrivals had no natural immunity against many local diseases.

What status did they have in Uzbekistan?

The vast majority of Crimean Tatars were transported to so-called special settlements - areas surrounded by armed guards, checkpoints and barbed wire that were more reminiscent of labor camps than civilian settlements.

The newcomers were cheap labor; they were used to work on collective farms, state farms and industrial enterprises.

In Uzbekistan, they cultivated cotton fields, worked in mines, construction sites, plants and factories. Among the hard work was the construction of the Farhad hydroelectric power station.

In 1948, Moscow recognized the Crimean Tatars as lifelong migrants. Those who left their special settlement without permission from the NKVD, for example to visit relatives, were in danger of 20 years in prison. There have been such cases.

Even before the deportation, propaganda incited hatred of the Crimean Tatars among local residents, branding them as traitors and enemies of the people.

As historian Greta Lynn Ugling writes, the Uzbeks were told that “cyclops” and “cannibals” were coming to them, and were advised to stay away from the aliens.

After the deportation, some local residents felt the heads of visitors to check that they were not growing horns.

Later, upon learning that the Crimean Tatars were of the same faith as them, the Uzbeks were surprised.

Children of immigrants could receive education in Russian or Uzbek, but not in Crimean Tatar.

By 1957, any publications in Crimean Tatar were prohibited. An article about the Crimean Tatars was removed from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

This nationality was also prohibited from being included in the passport.

What has changed in Crimea without the Tatars?

After the eviction of the Tatars, as well as Greeks, Bulgarians and Germans from the peninsula, in June 1945, Crimea ceased to be an autonomous republic and became a region within the RSFSR.

The southern regions of Crimea, where previously predominantly Crimean Tatars lived, are deserted.

For example, according to official data, only 2,600 residents remained in the Alushta region, and 2,200 in the Balaklava region. Subsequently, people from Ukraine and Russia began to resettle here.

“Toponymic repressions” were carried out on the peninsula - most cities, villages, mountains and rivers that had Crimean Tatar, Greek or German names received new Russian names. Among the exceptions are Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoy, Ishun, Saki and Sudak.

The Soviet government destroyed Tatar monuments, burned manuscripts and books, including volumes of Lenin and Marx translated into Crimean Tatar.

Cinemas and shops were opened in mosques.

When were the Tatars allowed to return to Crimea?

The regime of special settlements for Tatars lasted until the era of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization - the second half of the 1950s. Then the Soviet government softened their living conditions, but did not drop the charges of treason.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Tatars fought for their right to return to their historical homeland, including through demonstrations in Uzbek cities.

Osman Ibrish with his wife Alime. Settlement of Kibray, Uzbekistan, 1971

In 1968, the occasion of one of these actions was Lenin’s birthday. The authorities dispersed the meeting.

Gradually, the Crimean Tatars managed to achieve expansion of their rights, however, an informal, but no less strict ban on their return to Crimea was in effect until 1989.

Over the next four years, half of all Crimean Tatars who then lived in the USSR returned to the peninsula - 250 thousand people.

The return of the indigenous population to Crimea was difficult and was accompanied by land conflicts with local residents who had managed to settle in the new land. Major confrontations were nevertheless avoided.

A new challenge for the Crimean Tatars was the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. Some of them left the peninsula due to persecution.

The Russian authorities themselves banned others from entering Crimea, including Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov.

Does deportation have signs of genocide?

Some researchers and dissidents believe that the deportation of the Tatars meets the UN definition of genocide.

They argue that the Soviet government intended to destroy the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group and deliberately pursued this goal.

In 2006, the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people appealed to the Verkhovna Rada with a request to recognize the deportation as genocide.

Despite this, most historical works and diplomatic documents now call the forced resettlement of the Crimean Tatars deportation, not genocide.

In the Soviet Union they used the term "resettlement".

There is no need to believe the current propaganda about the innocence of the Crimean Tatars. Their guilt is obvious and documented by many sources. There is no need to believe the wild numbers of victims from deportation. Wild because they call from 25 to 50% of the dead. This is complete nonsense. Remember the main thing is that when our grandfathers and fathers died for their Motherland, the grandfathers and fathers of the current Crimean Tatars completely deserted and went into the service of the Germans. And now the facts:

According to recently declassified data from the Special Folder of the State Defense Committee (according to a message dated May 1 under number No. 387/B), during the German occupation of Crimea, Muslim committees were organized there, which “carried out, on instructions from German intelligence agencies, the recruitment of Tatar youth into volunteer detachments to fight the partisans and the Red Army, selected appropriate personnel to send them to the rear of the Red Army and conducted active pro-fascist agitation among the Tatar population in Crimea.”

In Crimea, the “Tatar National Committee” was created, which was headed by the Turkish emigrant Abdureshid Cemil. The committee had branches in all areas of Tatar residence in Crimea and actively collaborated with the Germans.

In 1943, the Turkish emissary Amil Pasha came to Feodosia, who also called on the Tatar population to support the activities of the German command.

Among the specific and particularly challenging data is the collection of funds to help the German army “after the defeat of the 6th German Army of Paulus at Stalingrad.” Thus, the Feodosia Muslim Committee collected “one million rubles” among the Tatars.

From Beria’s report to the State Defense Committee No. 366/B dated April 25, 1944 (from the same Special Folder):

“The activities of the Tatar National Committee were supported by broad sections of the Tatar population, to whom the German occupation authorities provided every possible support: they did not send them to work in Germany (except for 5,000 volunteers), did not send them to forced labor, provided tax benefits, etc. Not a single settlement with a Tatar population was destroyed.”

A special Tatar division was formed from the deserted Crimean Tatars, which took part in the battles in the Sevastopol region on the side of the Germans.

The Crimean Tatars, who collaborated with the occupiers, actively participated in punitive actions.

One example. “In the Dzhankoy region, a group of three Tatars was arrested, who, on instructions from German intelligence, poisoned 200 gypsies in a gas chamber in March 1942,” “in Sudak, 19 Tatars were arrested—punishers who brutally dealt with captured Red Army soldiers. Of the arrested Settars, Osman personally shot 37 Red Army soldiers, Abdureshitov Osman - 38 Red Army soldiers” (Special folder. Message number 465/B dated May 16, 1944).

In November 1941, all “local police auxiliary forces” in the territory of the Reichskommissariats were organized into units of “auxiliary order police” (Schutzmannschaft der Ordnungspolizei or “Schuma”).

Actually, the Schuma police consisted of the following categories:
- order police in cities and rural areas - Schutzmannschaft-Einseldienst;
- self-defense units - Selbst-Schutz;
- police battalions for fighting partisans - Schutzmannschaft-Bataillone;
- auxiliary fire police - Feuerschutzmannschaft;

- reserve auxiliary police for guarding prisoner-of-war camps and performing labor duties - Hilfsschutzmannschaft.

The police personnel consisted mainly of three national groups: Tatars, Ukrainians and Russians. Moreover, the national composition varied depending on the region. Thus, Tatars predominated in the police of Alushta (chief - Chermen Seit Memet), Yalta, Sevastopol (chief - Yagya Aliyev), Karasubazar and Zuya (chief - senior policeman Aliyev), there were significantly fewer of them in the police of Evpatoria and Feodosia.

However, neither the city nor the rural police could independently fight the partisans, much less destroy them. Therefore, the occupation authorities did everything to create larger armed formations that could ensure relative order, at least within their area.

One of the principles of the German occupation policy on the territory of the USSR was the creation of volunteer formations, in particular, the opposition of non-Russian peoples and national minorities to the Russian people. In Crimea, this principle was reflected in the flirting of the German authorities with the Crimean Tatar population and in the creation of volunteer formations from its representatives in the form of self-defense units and “Schuma” battalions for use on the territory of the peninsula.”

This official document should be supplemented.

Soon after the return of Crimea to the native bosom of Russia, President V. Putin received in the Kremlin representatives of the Crimean Tatars, who became our fellow citizens. Very gratifying. Presumably, there was something to talk about, find out something, help, take note of, etc. And shortly before this, a Decree on the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars was signed. There is also something to think about here.

Firstly, only someone who has been convicted can be rehabilitated. But there is not a single country in the world under whose legislation it would be possible to condemn an ​​entire people. There could not be such a code in the USSR. And the Crimean Tatar people were not and could not be condemned. What happened?

The Great Patriotic War began only 23 years after the October Revolution, which in one way or another, and sometimes quite unfairly, affected many. And these people were still far from old, quite active, often even at soldier’s age. It is understandable that they want to take advantage of the outbreak of war to their advantage, to avenge the loss of loved ones, property, or position. So thousands of yesterday's Soviet citizens ended up even in the ranks of the occupiers. And the surprise is not that traitors were found among the 195 million people, but that there were so few of them.

Here is a very valuable testimony from Natalya Vladimirovna Malysheva, intelligence officer, major of the Red Army, and much later Mother Adriana, whose beautiful portrait in her old age I saw in the studio of Alexander Shilov: “After all, I could have gone on evacuation with my Aviation Institute (MAI) to Alma-Ata . There's sunshine and fruit. But how can you leave when you understand: here the Germans will be walking the streets of Moscow... I decided: I will not go into evacuation, I will defend Moscow!.. I still ask myself: how was this possible? After all, there are so many repressed, so many churches destroyed. And yet, my militia division is 11 thousand volunteers who were in no way subject to conscription. We formed it in a week! We had children of both repressed people and priests. I knew two volunteers whose fathers were shot. But no one harbored a grudge. And so these children rose above their grievances, dropped everything and went to defend Moscow, many of whom it offended” (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. December 24, 2009).

But, of course, there were traitors. These were people of different nationalities of our multinational country, starting with the Russians. General Vlasov created an army, although from only two combat divisions, the Germans had Ukrainian units, and Central Asian units, and the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps (KKK)... Not to mention the Balts, who lived under Soviet rule for only a year before the war. The Germans treated all these national units with contempt and distrust. Hitler did not even want to see General Vlasov, the most famous traitor. Himmler dealt with him. And the Vlasov army was armed only in November 1944, when we entered German soil, and things became really bad for the Germans.

The Crimean Tatars could not be an exception here. Nationality, national mentality, national memory are not an invention of Stalinist propaganda, but the reality of life... A curious and very characteristic episode once flashed on television. It seems like seven thousand Germans now live in Crimea; they have some kind of unifying organization. And in the recent days of the reunification of Crimea with Russia, one journalist came to talk to the head of this organization. The conversation was friendly, benevolent, the German said that they would all vote for Russia... But what did we see on TV on the wall of his office? Portrait of Angela Merkel!.. What good did he see from her? Nothing. What did she give him? Nothing. And after all, most likely, his ancestors ended up in Russia under Peter or Catherine; he was a long-time Russian German, but here you have a portrait of the angelic Angela. There is only one national feeling and nothing more. Portraits of Hitler could not hang in the houses of Volga Germans, but still, still, still...

So, when thinking about the Crimean Tatars, we must not forget that there was a more powerful Crimean Khanate. For centuries it carried out devastating raids on Russian lands. Just look at the raid of Khan Devlet-Girey in May 1571. Taking advantage of the fact that Russian troops were busy in the Livonian War, he then, together with the Turks, reached Moscow, burned it all except the Kremlin, thousands of Muscovites were killed, thousands were driven into slavery. Khan wanted to conquer the Muscovite kingdom. Ivan the Terrible was ready to give him Astrakhan, but this was not enough for him, the war continued, and only in August of the following year, near the village of Molodi, 60 versts south of Moscow, the Russians under the command of Prince M.I. Vorotynsky completely defeated the army of the Khan and the Turks. And in 1687, 1689 there were our unsuccessful campaigns against Crimea, which became a Turkish vassal, and only after the victory over Turkey, only in 1783 was Crimea annexed to Russia. All these complex, difficult, bloody historical vicissitudes, which ended in their defeat, could not help but leave a mark in the memory of the Crimean Tatars. The history of the conquest of the Caucasus was even fresher in the memory of the Ingush and Chechens...

And the war began... On November 1, 1941, the Germans captured Simferopol, and on November 8, Yalta. I will give several excerpts from German documents of that time.

“From the diary of military operations of the 11th Army in Crimea. Intelligence Department.

Already during the occupation of Crimea by troops, the Tatars showed their friendliness towards the Germans. They considered the German troops as liberators from the yoke and offered their help... They have vivid memories of the brotherhood in arms in 1917-1918...

They increasingly offered us their help in the fight against the partisans and the Red Army. In Simferopol, Bakhchisaray, Karasubazar, etc. they prayed for the victory of German weapons, for the Fuhrer, sent letters of gratitude to the Fuhrer, asked to be allowed to take part in the fight against the Bolsheviks...

On January 20, 1942, a meeting was held in the army intelligence department, where it was announced that the Fuhrer had authorized the admission of volunteers from the Crimean Tatars, as well as the creation of Tatar self-defense companies to fight partisans. Einsatzgruppe D creates such companies. Tatars are considered employees of the Wehrmacht and receive the same food and pay as low-ranking Germans. They are proud to wear a German uniform and try to learn German and are very proud when they can speak German.

On January 3, 1942, at 10.00, the first official meeting of the Tatar Committee began in Simferopol, dedicated to the recruitment of Tatars for the common fight against Bolshevism. The meeting was held under the leadership of the chief of the Einsatzgruppe.” The meeting was opened by SS-Oberführer Ohlendorf with a welcoming speech. He said that he was glad to inform the committee that his request to defend his homeland in this sacred struggle with the Germans against Bolshevism was granted.

The Tatars present received these words with delight and loudly applauded. The Mullah of the Muslim Association of Simferopol stated that his religion requires him to take part in this sacred struggle along with the Germans. The oldest of the Tatars, Ennan Setulla, said that he himself was ready to come out with weapons, although he was sixty years old. Chairman of the Tatar Committee Abdureshidov: “I know that the Tatars as a people (!) are all ready to oppose the common enemy. We are honored to be allowed to fight under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the greatest figure of the German people. We are all (!) ready to march under the leadership of the German army.” The second chairman of the Tatar Committee, youth representative Kermenchikli said: “Every (!) young Tatar goes into battle with the consciousness that this is a battle against the worst enemy of the German and our people.”

After everything was agreed upon, the Tatars asked this solemn meeting and the beginning of the struggle against the infidels to end with a prayer service. The Tatars, following the mullah, repeated three prayers. The first is for achieving a quick victory for common goals and for the long life of Adolf Hitler. The second is for the German people and their valiant army. The third is for the dead German soldiers” (VIZH No. 3’1991. P. 91-93).

But what about some unknown Oberführer Ohlendorf! This is what the famous Field Marshal General E. Manstein, whose army broke into Crimea in September 1941, wrote in his memoirs: “The majority (!) of the Tatar population of Crimea was very friendly towards us. We even managed to form armed companies from the Tatars for self-defense... The Tatars immediately took our side. They saw us as their liberators from the Bolshevik yoke... A Tatar deputation came to me, bringing fruits and beautiful handmade fabrics for the liberator Adolf Effendi.”

Soon the newspaper “Azat Krym” (“Liberated Crimea”) began to be published. For example, it read:

At a meeting organized by the Muslim Committee, Muslims expressed gratitude To the Great Fuhrer Adolf Hitler Effendi for a free life. Then they arranged service for the health of Hitler Effendi».

Or: " To the great Hitler - liberator of all peoples and religions! Two thousand Tatars from the village of Kokkozy and the surrounding area gathered for a prayer service in honor of the German soldiers. The entire Tatar people prays every day and asks Allah to grant the Germans victory over the whole world. Oh Great Leader, we speak from the bottom of our hearts, believe us! We give our word to fight the herd of Jews and Bolsheviks together with German soldiers. God bless you, our great master Hitler,” etc. and so on.

And there is nothing surprising or exceptional in this whole picture, including such a newspaper. There were like-minded people among the named Tatars among the Russians. They wrote approximately the same thing in the Vlasov newspapers. And long before the war, the Athonite elder Aristokle prophesied: “Wait until the Germans take up arms, for they have been chosen not only by God as an instrument of punishment for Russia, but also as an instrument of deliverance. When you hear that the Germans are taking up arms, then the time is close” (The Great Civil War of 1941-1945. M. 2002. P.498).

But then the Germans took up arms. Journalist D. Zhukov writes in the same book: “In emigration, the overwhelming majority of priests and parishioners welcomed the beginning of the war, even greeted it enthusiastically” (p. 499, 501). Thus, Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov) stated: “May the Almighty bless the great Leader of the German people, who raised the sword against the enemies of God himself.” He was echoed by the very liberal Archimandrite John (Shakhovskoy) in the article “The Hour is Near”: “What desired days did both sub-Soviet and foreign Russia live to see... The bloody operation of overthrowing the Third International is entrusted to a skillful, experienced German surgeon” ( p.501). (The aforementioned Zhukov, the parent of the most colorless deputy prime minister of all democratic governments since the Yeltsin era, the same truth teller who wrote in Litgazeta that Stalin flew to the Tehran conference with a cash cow, tried, with the help of dirty slander, to attach himself to this horde of haters The Soviet Union and Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), the future patriarch, whose name this Zhukov does not even know how to spell correctly. He, he says, “in his sermon in the Patriarchal Cathedral in Moscow indirectly supported the beginning of the war” (p. 499). they say, Germans. For such fabrications, even the parents of deputy prime ministers are hit on the head with a candelabra).

But it was not only the churchmen who rejoiced at Hitler’s attack. Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin, who lived in German-occupied France, supposedly a classic of Russian literature, wrote in his diary in the first days of the war on July 2, 1941, with obvious gloating: “It’s true that Stalin’s reign will soon end. Kyiv will probably be taken in a week or two.” The classic was in a hurry; in fact, Kyiv was captured almost three months later. True, later the classic came to his senses somewhat and was even glad when we liberated Odessa. I'm not even talking about General Krasnov, who fought twice with the Germans against Soviet Russia and deservedly received the gallows in 1946. And General Denikin, who then also lived in France, and after the war went overseas, hated Soviet Russia until the end of his days and even in 1947, shortly before his death, sent a detailed note to the American President on how to more deftly defeat the Soviet Union, using the experience of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War.

As for Russian clergy, even today there are still ardent admirers of Hitler among them. Here is what you can read in the magazine “Russian Orthodoxy” No. 4 for 2000: “The Catacomb Church has always confessed and now confesses that Hitler for True Orthodox Christians (IOC) was God’s chosen anointed leader not only in the political, but also in the spiritual and mystical sense, the good fruits of which are still felt today. Therefore, the IPH honors him... As during the life of the German Fuhrer, St. The church offered prayers for his health and for the granting of victory over his adversaries, and after his death she prays for his immortal soul” (Ibid., p. 500). Having quoted these lines, Zhukov did not express his attitude towards them: “We leave it to the readers to decide for themselves on this issue.” And, for example, Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov, who regularly organizes anniversary memorial services for General Krasnov, Vlasov, and Solzhenitsyn, can help decide. Moreover, he curses the famous general A.A. Brusilov, who after the revolution took the side of the people and their Red Army, but praises Kolchak, Yudenich and Yeltsin (Tragedy of Russia. M. 2009). As we see, these saints, in their servility and servility to the fascists and other enemies of Russia, perhaps even leave behind the mentioned Simferopol mullah and his Crimean Tatar associates during the war.

Meanwhile, in the above document from the intelligence department of the 11th German Army there is also the following evidence: “In the villages of the Bakhchisarai region, before January 22, 1942, 565 Tatars voluntarily declared their service with us, but during the conscription, frequent refusals were noted. As of January 30, due to illness and other reasons, there were 176 such people, of which 48 people simply did not show up at the recruiting stations. As a result, out of 565 volunteers, 389 people remained” (Cit. cit., p. 94). This is a very important testimony. Yes, of course, not all Tatars went to serve the Germans. Moreover, the Tatars were also among the partisans. Thus, according to archival data of the Crimean Regional Party Committee, in April 1944, on the eve of the liberation of Crimea, in the partisan detachments there were 2075 Russians, 391 Tatars, 356 Ukrainians, 71 Belarusians (Quoted by I. Pykhalov. The Time of Stalin. M. 2001 . P.76) . It’s also worth mentioning that during the war years, 161 Tatars (I don’t know how many of them were Crimean) became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

But, presumably, the proportion of Tatars who served with the Germans was still quite high. Thus, in a memorandum from the Deputy People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR B.Z. Kobulov and the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR I.A. Serov dated April 22, 1944 to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria, it was said that in 1941, about 20 thousand Tatars and all of them deserted during the retreat of our 51st army from Crimea and ended up in the ranks of the Germans. This is almost the entire Crimean Tatar population of military age” (Ibid., p. 75).

Much can be judged from the memorandum of Beria, who, as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, led the eviction operation. He reported to Stalin on May 10, 1944. There is also the following data: “The NKVD and NKGB bodies are carrying out in Crimea the identification and seizure of enemy agents, traitors to the homeland. On May 7 this year. 5,381 such persons were arrested, weapons were seized - 5,995 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars, a large number of grenades and cartridges.”

On July 5, 1944, Beria, summing up the results, reported: “... 15,990 weapons illegally stored among the population were seized, including 724 machine guns, 716 machine guns, 5 million pieces of ammunition” (Ibid., p. 84). Machine guns, as you know, are not used for quail hunting... 716 machine guns are a lot of power in those conditions. And Beria had no reason to exaggerate these figures in his note to Stalin.

Yes, of course, not all Tatars collaborated with the Germans. Not everyone was evicted. For example, they did not touch those Tatars who themselves participated in partisan detachments and their families. Here we can name the family of S.S. Useinov, a partisan shot by the Germans. Families in which the wife is Tatar and the husband is Russian were not evicted. The Tatars who were at the front, like the pilot E.U. Chalbash and others, managed to defend their families (Ibid.).

In assessing this entire dramatic story, a number of important circumstances must be taken into account.

Firstly, eviction based on ethnicity in wartime is not a Soviet invention. A very knowledgeable and conscientious political scientist, Professor S.G. Kara-Murza writes: “In 1915-1916. The tsarist government carried out the forced eviction of Germans from the front line and even from the Azov region. In the same year, 1915, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, over 100 thousand people were evicted from the Baltic states to Altai. On February 19, 1942, the most liberal President Roosevelt gave the order not even to deport, but to imprison US citizens of Japanese descent in concentration camps. In these camps they were forced to do hard work in the mines. But there was no threat of a Japanese invasion” (Soviet civilization. Book one, M. 2002. P. 608). And there were about 130 thousand people behind barbed wire. And one cannot help but compare: Japan was overseas from the United States, and Crimea was then the rear of the fighting Red Army.

Secondly, in all the episodes mentioned above, neither the Germans, nor the Balts, nor the Japanese showed dangerous hostility towards their country or sympathy for its enemy, much less any assistance to him. They were expelled in advance, in order, so to speak, of a preventive military quarantine. Another thing is the Crimean Tatars. They were expelled after the liberation of Crimea, when numerous facts of their active cooperation with the occupiers became reliably known.

Thirdly, because the Germans had not yet been expelled from our land, no one could say when the war would end and what other possible turns in its course. And so, having liberated Crimea, in such conditions, leave hostile armed detachments in the rear of our army, who have more than 700 machine guns alone? This would be extremely irresponsible and dangerous. What if the Germans returned to Crimea? This could not be ruled out then.

Fourthly, Crimea is not just a territory, but a strategically extremely important border outskirts of the country, a springboard that should be an absolutely reliable rear of the Red Army.

Fifthly, in war conditions it was simply not possible to deal with each individual suspect, with each specific fact.

Finally, if the Tatars had remained in Crimea after its liberation, this could have caused many acute, including bloody, conflicts between them and the rest of the population. Lyudmila Zhukova writes in Literaturnaya Gazeta: “Today, due to political correctness, it is not customary for us to explain the reason for the deportation of an entire people. I remember the meeting in Alushta in the late 70s with the front-line soldiers who liberated Crimea. They said: “The deportation of the entire people saved them from the retribution of the front-line soldiers, who were not afraid of anything then” (LG. May 21, 14). Yes, deportation saved the Tatars from the wrath of the people.

How and under what conditions did the resettlement take place? According to the decree of the State Defense Committee of May 11, 1944, signed by Stalin, each family was allowed to take with them up to 500 kg of things - equipment, dishes, food, etc. Exchange receipts were issued for abandoned livestock, grain, and vegetables in order to return for them everything accepted at the place of settlement in Uzbekistan. To organize the reception, the four named heads of the People's Commissariats were instructed to send the required number of workers to Crimea. And to exchange at the place of settlement everything handed over to Uzbekistan, a special commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was sent from six also named responsible officials from a number of people's commissariats, headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR Gritsenko. People's Commissar of Health Miterev was instructed to allocate a doctor and two nurses for each echelon “with an appropriate supply of medicines and provide medical and sanitary services to the special settlers along the way.” And one more thing: “The People's Commissariat of Trade of the USSR (Comrade Lyubimov) should provide all echelons with daily hot meals. For this purpose, the People’s Commissariat of Trade will allocate products.”

The Tatars were not thrown out somewhere in a bare field. “The resettlement of special settlers,” said the GKO resolution, “will be carried out in state farm settlements, collective farms, in subsidiary rural farms of enterprises and factory settlements for use in agriculture and industry.” In addition, local authorities were to “provide special settlers with personal plots and assist in the construction of houses,” for which each family was given a loan of 5,000 rubles for seven years. Other measures to help the Tatars were also provided, and 30 million rubles were allocated for all activities. I wonder how much it cost the Americans to keep the Japanese behind barbed wire...

S. Kara-Murza believes that the deportation of peoples from Crimea and the Caucasus was a punishment based on the principle of mutual responsibility, when one is responsible for everyone, and everyone is responsible for one. But it was a very strange punishment. Kara-Murza himself testifies that in the places of the new settlement, party and Komsomol organizations were preserved, people studied in their native language, received an education, a specialty, and later did not know any discrimination when receiving higher education. And in the end, this is also very characteristic. Our other famous researcher Vadim Kozhinov, responding in 1993 to a certain G. Vachnadze, who stated that 50% of Chechens died during the deportation, wrote: “According to reliable census data, in 1944 there were 459 thousand Chechens and Ingush people, and in 1959- m, when they returned to their native land - 525 thousand, i.e. 14.2% more. If half the people really died, then their numbers could recover in no less than half a century. So, in 1941-1944, not 50, but “only” 22% of the population of Belarus (2 million out of 9) died, and the pre-war number was able to recover only 25 years later - by 1970” (Fate of Russia. M. 1997 . P.168). That is, as Kara-Murza writes, “they returned to the Caucasus as a grown and strengthened people” (Cit. cit. p. 609). There is no reason to believe that things were different among the Tatars or Kalmyks.

So was the Rehabilitation Decree necessary? I think that instead of the Decree, it would be necessary, on behalf of the state, to apologize to the Tatars for the fact that in wartime conditions it was not possible to comply with all legal norms and formalities and to gratefully remember all the Tatars, living and dead, who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Let me remind you again: 161 Tatars, including the poet Musa Jalil, received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their exploits during the war. Here they are only fourth after much more numerous peoples...

I have known many Tatars in my life. As a child, I was friends with two Tatar brothers, whose surname and names I forgot due to the passage of time; at the front, in the same company with me were the Tatars Ziyatdinov and Khabibullin; after the war I knew the wonderful poet Mikhail Lvov, who wrote in Russian; I have been friends with playwright Azat Abdullin for many years. Who else? The wife's friends are Chulpan Malysheva, daughter of Musa Jalil, Galiya Alimova. And I can’t say a single unkind word about any of them... This is what we should write a song about for Jamala so that she can sing it in Sweden for all of Europe.

V.S. Bushin
Original taken from