"Crimean Tatars. Resettlement – Salvation, Remedy or Necessity?"

 A translated article -- 

Crimean Tatars. Resettlement – Salvation, Remedy or Necessity?  

During the occupation of Crimea in 1941-1944, the Soviet underground and partisan detachments operated on the peninsula. After the war, many first-hand books were written about this. In their memoirs, the partisans tell how they fought the invaders and their accomplices.  

However, there is nothing in them about how the Nazis cobbled together traitors from the local population into punitive detachments – and then the partisans already became the object of hunting. With the help of local punishers, the Germans and Romanians not only rounded up the partisans, but also terrorized the civilian population.  

It was not allowed to write about such things, and mass betrayal in the 1960s became a silent figure. Former accomplices answered for the crimes, and their children and grandchildren should be reminded of the "exploits of their ancestors" ... Why?  

So everything would have remained somewhere at the bottom of historical memory, but other times have come. Everything that was not told at one time became plots for post-truth. In these plots, the victims of the unbearable Stalinist regime were suddenly driven out of their native land overnight, and in uncomfortable freight cars, barefoot and naked, they were taken to Tmutarakan ...  

So what was it – deportation?  

As you know, the German command attached great importance to the capture and retention of the Crimean peninsula. “Whoever owns the Crimea will become the master of the Black Sea…” was the official position.  

According to the plans of the Fuhrer, the Crimea was to be completely cleared of natives (including Tatars) and populated by German colonists. Hitler planned to create in the Crimea a new imperial region of Gotenland (the country is ready), and Simferopol to be renamed Gothsburg (the city is ready). 

Accordingly, the Tatars and other indigenous peoples were not supposed to live in the Crimea, and indeed to live in general. However, it is difficult to kill everyone at once (how many soldiers to remove from the front!), it is easier to set peoples against each other.  

The Nazis drew the local population into cooperation in all the occupied territories. The Crimean peninsula was no exception, but here the betrayal was much more widespread.  

It should be noted that on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, according to the All-Union Population Census of 1939, 218,179 Tatars lived on the peninsula, that is, 19.4% of the total population of Crimea. 

Let us clarify that the Tatars were not divided into Crimean, Kazan or Ufa. In the documents in the column "nationality" was written: "Tatar".  

After Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars joined the ranks of the Red Army. Of course, there are heroes among those who came from Crimea, eight of them were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The most famous is the twice Hero Amet-Khan Sultan. And his brother went over to the side of the Germans. And how many more such brothers and fathers of other heroes served the invaders.  

Mass betrayal was the reason why the Tatars and representatives of several other nationalities of the Crimea after the liberation of the peninsula were evicted to other territories of the USSR.  

Immediately after the capture of Crimea in the fall of 1941, the Nazis began active propaganda to attract the population of Crimea of all nationalities to fight against the Soviet regime.  

The commander of the 11th Army, E. von Manstein, even allegedly demanded from his soldiers a respectful attitude towards the religious customs of the Muslim Tatars, and urged them not to allow any unjustified actions against the civilian population.  

If indeed there was such a call, it, in the light of Hitler's plans for the Crimea, did not differ in sincerity, to put it mildly. Manstein was merely fulfilling the Fuhrer's "divide and rule" task.  

And to rule, I must say, it turned out. Most of the Tatar population was actively involved in the anti-Soviet struggle.  

The first to serve the Germans were the nationalists. For some reason, they believed that the Germans would free them from the Bolsheviks, and then gladly hand over power to them. And then they will become the masters of the peninsula, as it was in the old days.  

In total, the ranks of the Wehrmacht were replenished, according to various sources, from 8 to 20 thousand Tatars. In addition, the village elders organized several thousand people to fight the partisans. 

Remarkably, liberal historians avoid mentioning that the accomplices killed mostly the civilian population, and reduce everything to participation in military units and desertion.  

And the oaths of allegiance to Hitler were completely “forgotten”. In April 1942, the Simferopol Muslim Committee sent a birthday greeting to Adolf Hitler.  

The leaders of the Crimean Tatars wrote the following text:  

“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.  

In March 1943, the publication "Azat Krym" issued the following:  

“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!"  

There is a good deal of such “folk art” in the archives, but historians usually ignore it when writing their dissertations about the “cruel Stalinist regime.”  

The essence of such pseudo-historical research is the same – only a real tyrant could think of deporting innocent people.  

Meanwhile, the Muslim leaders of the Crimean Tatars not only called themselves brothers of the German people in words, but also confirmed this with real crimes against the Soviet people: they hunted down and destroyed partisans, betrayed communists and their families, brutally killed Jews. Judging by archival documents, the invaders even had to restrain their zeal.  

About the documented atrocities of collaborators in only one of the Crimean concentration camps – "Red" – you can read here: https://compas.info/%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bd%d1%86%d0%bb%d0%b0.../  

After the liberation of Crimea, work began to identify and neutralize enemy agents, traitors to the motherland, accomplices of the invaders and other criminal elements.  

Taking into account the treacherous actions of the Crimean peoples during the years of occupation and based on the undesirability of their further residence in the border areas of the Soviet Union, the NKVD of the USSR submitted to I.V. Stalin the draft decision of the GKO on eviction from the territory of Crimea.  

As a result, it was decided to deport more than 180 thousand people. They were accused of treason and cooperation with Nazi Germany and deported from the Crimea.  

If we recall the total number of Tatars in Crimea before the war, it turns out that not all of them were deported.  

The eviction activities began on May 18, 1944. Everything was clearly planned and organized in a military way. On trucks, people were taken to the railway stations, and from there they were sent in freight cars to the places of deportation.  

Each family was allowed to take 500 kilograms of luggage with them.  

180,014 people were loaded into 67 echelons. Another 6,000 Tatars of draft age were mobilized and sent to work in the cities of Guryev, Rybinsk and Kuibyshev according to the order of the Glavupraform of the Red Army.  

The settlers were taken to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, part of the Volga region. In general, not into the bare tundra, and not into the taiga. The groans of liberal historians about the cold wagons in which the settlers were transported can be ignored, because it was the second half of May outside. And about the lack of medical care – pure lies.  

And the former accomplices on the road did not starve: everyone was entitled to hot food, 500 grams of bread a day, the diet necessarily included meat, fish and fats.  

So depictions of hunger, cold, mass diseases and lice, as well as corpses thrown out of the cars – this is for fans of Zuleikha. During the 20 days of the journey, out of 180 thousand, 191 people died – this is about 0.1%, which did not exceed the level of natural loss, people, alas, are mortal.  

In order for families to get back on their feet in a new place, they were given an interest-free loan for 7 years. The settlers were provided with work – some in agriculture, some in the mines, and housing in the form of barracks. Well, the people killed during the occupation of Crimea could no longer have this...  

As for infections, the authorities took care of the poor migrants in this as well. For example, 8 tons of laundry soap, 2 tons of gasoline and 5 tons of kerosene were sent to 12 regions of Kazakhstan, where about 5,000 people moved, to provide anti-epidemic measures.  

The life of the deportees was difficult, historians say, and this is true. But! The whole country had a difficult life, because there was a war. And after the war, the deportees lived and worked like everyone else. Children and grandchildren studied in the same schools and universities with the children and grandchildren of front-line soldiers.  

There were limits, of course. In 1948, the Crimean Tatars were recognized as lifelong migrants. After the Tatars, as well as the Greeks, Bulgarians and Germans, were evicted from the peninsula, in June 1945 Crimea ceased to be an autonomous republic and became a region within the RSFSR. 

There is an opinion that the deportation was necessary in order to avoid a vendetta in the post-war period. Perhaps this is a reasonable conclusion. There were probably many who dreamed of returning home from the front and avenging their dead relatives.  

We think that everything was simpler, at the same time more logical and reasonable. Stalin cared first of all about the security of the state. Disloyal people were resettled from the border regions. That's all. And this is by no means contrary to international practice.  

But! Already under Brezhnev, a decree was adopted on September 5, 1967 "On citizens of Tatar nationality living in the Crimea."  

It was recognized that "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." 

But they were still flowers. As soon as it became possible, those who wanted to get even with the Soviet authorities hyped the topic of deportation to the fullest. In November 1989, the last people's deputies of the USSR recognized the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as illegal and criminal.  

Silence about those events as a result came out sideways. And for more than thirty years now, the new government has been bowing and repenting for the "crime of the Stalinist regime."  

And writers compose stories, one sadder than the other, about the tragic fate of small but proud peoples...  

In the photo: The remains of people tortured by traitors in the concentration camp "Red". Crimea.  

Source: https://dzen.ru/a/Y5dF0zUdECymMOoL  

Courtesy Евгений Иванов