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

The Crimean Tatars actively cooperated with the German occupation authorities, participating in organized German intelligence the so-called "Tatar national committees" and were widely used by the Germans for the purpose of sending spies and saboteurs to the rear of the Red Army. "Tatar National Committees", in which the White Guard-Tatar emigrants played the main role, with the support of Crimean Tatars directed their activities towards the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of Crimea and carried out work to prepare for the forcible secession of Crimea from 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 the property, livestock, grain and agricultural products left by the special settlers in the places of eviction, 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 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 , to Crimea required amount 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 for 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. 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 Khrulyov) 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. Deputies were assigned to lead the deportation operation people's commissars State Security and Internal Affairs B. Z. Kobulov and I. A. Serov.

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.”

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 deportation victims. Wild because they are called 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 homeland, the grandfathers and fathers of the current Crimean Tatars deserted without exception and went to the service of the Germans. And now the facts:

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

In the Crimea, a "Tatar National Committee" was created, which was headed by a Turkish citizen, an emigrant, Abdureshid Cemil. The Committee had branches in all areas of Tatar residence in the Crimea and actively cooperated 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 german army"after the defeat of the 6th German army of Paulus near Stalingrad." Thus, the Feodosia Muslim Committee collected "one million rubles" among the Tatars.

From the report of Beria 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 all kinds of support: they were not driven to work in Germany (excluding 5,000 volunteers), they were not taken to forced labor, they were provided tax benefits, etc. Not a single settlement with a Tatar population was destroyed.”

From the deserted Crimean Tatars, a special Tatar division was formed, 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 of the examples. In the “Dzhankoy region, a group was arrested, including three Tatars, who, on the instructions of German intelligence, poisoned 200 gypsies in a gas chamber in March 1942”, “19 Tatars were arrested in Sudak - punishers who brutally cracked down on captured soldiers of the Red Army. Of the arrested Settars, Osman personally shot 37 Red Army soldiers, Abdureshitov Osman - 38 Red Army soldiers ”(Special folder. Message number 465 / B of May 16, 1944).

In November 1941, all "local police auxiliary forces" in the territory of the Reichskommissariats were organized into units of the "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 to fight partisans - Schutzmannschaft-Bataillone;
- auxiliary fire police - Feuerschutzmannschaft;
- reserve auxiliary police for the protection of prisoner of war camps and labor service - Hilfsschutzmannschaft.

Departments of urban and rural police were created immediately after the Germans occupied the cities and large settlements of the Crimea. The main duties of its employees were to maintain order in locality and monitoring the implementation of the passport regime.

Personnel The police consisted mainly of three national groups: Tatars, Ukrainians and Russians. And National composition varied depending on the area. So, the Tatars prevailed in the police of Alushta (head - Chermen Seit Memet), Yalta, Sevastopol (head - Yagya Aliyev), Karasubazar and Zuya (head - senior policeman Aliev), they were much less 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 occupying authorities did everything to create larger armed formations that could ensure relative order, at least within their own region.

One of the principles of the German occupation policy on the territory of the USSR was the creation of volunteer formations, in particular, it was the opposition of non-Russian peoples and national minorities to the Russian people. In Crimea, this principle was reflected in the German authorities' flirting 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 Russia's native bosom, President Vladimir Putin received in the Kremlin representatives of the Crimean Tatars, who became our fellow citizens. Very reassuring. Presumably, there was something to talk about, to find out something, to help, to take note, etc. And shortly before that, a Decree on the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars was signed. Here, too, there is something to think about.

First, only those who have been convicted can be rehabilitated. But there is not a single country in the world, according to the legislation of which it would be possible to condemn an ​​entire people. There could not be such a code in the USSR either. And the Crimean Tatar people were not and could not be condemned. What happened?

The Great Patriotic War began only 23 years after October revolution which one way or another, and sometimes very unfairly, touched many. And these people were still far from old, at quite active, often at the age of a soldier. Their desire to take advantage of the outbreak of war in their own interests is understandable, to avenge the loss of loved ones or property, position. So thousands of yesterday's Soviet citizens even found themselves in the ranks of the occupiers. And it is surprising not that traitors were found among the 195 million people, but that there were so few of them.

Here is a very valuable testimony of Natalya Vladimirovna Malysheva, a scout, a major in the Red Army, and much later mother Adriana, whose beautiful portrait I saw in the workshop of Alexander Shilov in my old age: “After all, I could go to evacuation with my Aviation Institute (MAI) in Alma-Ata . There is sunshine and fruits. But how to leave when you understand: and here the Germans will walk the streets of Moscow ... I decided: I will not go to the evacuation, I will defend Moscow! .. I still ask myself: well, how was this possible? After all, so many repressed, so many churches destroyed. Nevertheless, my militia division is 11 thousand volunteers who were not subject to conscription in any way. Created in a week! We had children of both the repressed and the priests. I knew two volunteers whose fathers were shot. But no one harbored evil. And these children rose above their grievances, abandoned everything and went to defend Moscow, many of whom she offended. Russian newspaper. December 24, 2009).

But, of course, there were cheaters. These were people of different nationalities in our multinational country, starting with Russians. General Vlasov created an army, although from only two combat divisions, the Germans had both Ukrainian units, and Central Asian, and the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps (KKK) ... I'm not talking about the Balts, who lived under Soviet power 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 worked with him. And they armed the Vlasov army only in November 1944, when we entered German soil, and the affairs of the Germans became really bad.

The Crimean Tatars could not be an exception here. Nationality, national mentality, national memory is not an invention of Stalinist propaganda, but the reality of life ... A curious and very characteristic episode once flashed on television. It seems that 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 went 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 hardened Russian German a long time ago, but on you is a portrait of an angelic Angel. There is only one national feeling and nothing more. Portraits of Hitler could not hang in the houses of the Volga Germans, but still, nevertheless, nevertheless ....

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

And the war began ... On November 1, 1941, the Germans captured Simferopol, on November 8 - Yalta. Here are some excerpts from German documents of that time.

“From the diary of military operations of the 11th army in the Crimea. Intelligence department.

Already during the occupation of the Crimean troops, the Tatars showed their friendliness to the Germans. They considered the German troops to be liberators from the yoke, they 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, Bakhchisarai, Karasubazar, etc. they prayed for the victory of German arms, for the Fuhrer, sent letters of thanks 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 intelligence department of the army, where it was announced that the Fuhrer had allowed the reception 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 allowance as low-ranking Germans. They take pride in what they wear German uniform and try to learn German and are very proud when they can speak German.

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

The present Tatars apprehended these words with enthusiasm and stormily applauded. The mullah of the Muslim association of Simferopol stated that his religion required him to take part in this sacred struggle together with the Germans. The oldest of the Tatars, Ennan Setulla, said that he himself was ready to take up arms, although he was sixty years old. Chairman of the Tatar Committee Abdureshids: “I know that the Tatars as a people (!) are ready to oppose the common enemy. It is a great honor for us to receive permission to fight under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the greatest leader of the German people. We are all (!) ready to march under the leadership of the German army.” The second chairman of the Tatar Committee, the youth representative of 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 peoples.”

After everything was agreed upon, the Tatars asked for 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. Third - for the dead German soldiers"(VIZH No. 3'1991. S. 91-93).

But what about some oberfuhrer Ohlendorf, unknown to anyone! Here is what the well-known Field Marshal E. Manstein wrote in his memoirs, whose army broke into Crimea in September 1941: “Most (!) of the Tatar population of Crimea was very friendly to us. We even managed to form armed companies from the Tatars for self-defense ... The Tatars immediately sided with us. They saw us as their liberators from the Bolshevik yoke... A Tatar delegation came to me, bringing fruits and beautiful handmade fabrics for the liberator Adolf Efendi.”

Soon the newspaper "Azat Krym" ("Liberated Crimea") began to appear. It printed something like this:

At a meeting hosted by the Muslim Committee, Muslims expressed their gratitude Great Fuhrer Adolf Hitler-effendi for a free life. Then arranged service for the health of Hitler-effendi».

Or: " 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. All the Tatar people pray daily and ask 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 the German soldiers. May the Lord bless you, our great lord Hitler”, etc. etc.

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

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

But not only churchmen rejoiced at Hitler's attack. Ivan Bunin, a Nobel laureate living in German-occupied France, who seemed to be a classic of Russian literature, in the first days of the war on July 2, 1941, wrote in his diary with obvious gloating: “It is true that Stalin’s kingdom 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 even rejoiced when we liberated Odessa. I'm not talking about General Krasnov, who twice fought with the Germans against Soviet Russia and deservedly received the gallows in 1946. And General Denikin, who also lived in France then, and after the war drove off across the ocean, hated Soviet Russia to the end of his days and even in 1947, shortly before his death, sent a detailed note to the American president about how it was more clever to defeat the Soviet Union, using experience civil war and the Great Patriotic War.

As for the Russian clergy, even at the present time, ardent admirers of Hitler have not disappeared among them. Here is what you can read in the Russian Orthodoxy magazine No. 4, 2000: “The Catacomb Church has always confessed and now confesses that Hitler for True Orthodox Christians (IPKh) was God’s chosen anointed leader not only in the political, but also in the spiritual and mystical sense, the good fruits of whose deeds are still tangible. Therefore, the IPH pays tribute to him ... As during the life of the German Fuhrer, St. The Church offered up prayers for his health and granting him victory over adversaries, and after his death she prays for his immortal soul” (Ibid., p. 500). Citing these lines, Zhukov did not express his attitude towards them: "We leave the readers to decide on this issue for themselves." And Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov, who regularly arranges anniversary memorial services for General Krasnov, Vlasov, and Solzhenitsyn, can help to 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 you can see, these saints in servility and servility to the Nazis and other enemies of Russia, perhaps even leave behind the mentioned Simferopol mullah and his Crimean Tatar associates during the war.

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

But, presumably, the proportion of Tatars who served with the Germans was still quite high. So, in the memorandum of 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. 20 thousand Tatars and all of them deserted during the retreat of our 51st army from the 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 such data: “The bodies of the NKVD and the NKGB are carrying out in the Crimea the identification and seizure of enemy agents, traitors to the motherland. As of May 7 this year. 5381 such persons were arrested, weapons were confiscated - 5995 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars, a large number of grenades and cartridges.

On July 5, 1944, Beria, summing up, reported: “... 15,990 weapons illegally stored from the population were seized, including 724 assault rifles, 716 machine guns, and 5 million ammunition” (Ibid., p. 84). Machine guns, as you know, are not used for hunting quail ... 716 machine guns are a lot of power in those conditions. And Beria had no reason to exaggerate these figures in a 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 you 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. It was possible to defend their families to the Tatars who were at the front, like the pilot E.U. Chalbash and others (Ibid.).

In evaluating this whole dramatic story, one must take into account a number of important circumstances.

First, eviction on an ethnic basis in war time not 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 Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. In the same 1915, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, over 100 thousand people were deported from the Baltic to Altai. On February 19, 1942, the most liberal President Roosevelt ordered not even to deport, but to imprison US citizens of Japanese origin 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 the barbed wire. And it is impossible not to compare: Japan was from the United States across the ocean, 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 opponent, all the more so, this or that assistance to him. They were expelled in advance, in the 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 twists and turns in its course. And now, having liberated the Crimea, in such conditions, to leave hostile armed groups 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 would return to the Crimea? It was impossible to rule it out then.

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

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

Finally, if the Tatars had remained in the 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 the Literaturnaya Gazeta: “Out of political correctness, it is not customary for us to explain the reason for the deportation of an entire people even today. I remember the meeting in Alushta in the late 70s with the front-line soldiers who liberated the Crimea. They said: “The deportation of the whole people saved them from the retribution of the front-line soldiers, who then were not afraid of anything” (LG. May 21, 14). Yes, the deportation saved the Tatars from the wrath of the people.

And how, 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 - inventory, dishes, food, etc. For abandoned cattle, grain, vegetables, exchange receipts were issued in order to return on them all accepted at the place of settlement in Uzbekistan. To organize the reception, four named leaders of the people's commissariats were instructed to send the required number of workers to the Crimea. And for the exchange at the place of settlement of everything surrendered to Uzbekistan, a special commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was sent from six responsible officials of a number of people's commissariats, also named by name, headed by Gritsenko, deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. People's Commissar of Health Miterev was instructed to provide a doctor and two sisters for each echelon "with an appropriate supply of medicines and to provide medical and sanitary care for the special settlers on the way." And one more thing: “To the People's Commissariat of the USSR (comrade Lyubimov) to provide all echelons with daily hot meals. To do this, the People's Commissariat of Trade should allocate products.

Tatars were not thrown out somewhere in a bare field. “The resettlement of special settlers,” the GKO decree said, “is to be carried out in state farm settlements, collective farms, in subsidiary farms of enterprises and factory settlements for use in agriculture and industry.” Besides, local authorities it was necessary to “provide the 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 what it cost the Americans to keep the Japanese behind barbed wire...

S. Kara-Murza believes that the deportation of peoples from the Crimea and the Caucasus was a punishment based on the principle of mutual responsibility, when one is responsible for all, and all for one. But it was a very strange punishment. Kara-Murza himself testifies that party and Komsomol organizations were preserved in the places of the new settlement, people studied mother tongue, received education, specialty, later did not know any discrimination in obtaining higher education. And finally, this is very typical. Our other well-known researcher Vadim Kozhinov, answering 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 native land, - 525 thousand, i.e. 14.2% more. If half of the people really died, then their numbers could be restored 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 population was able to recover only after 25 years - by 1970 ”(The fate of Russia. M. 1997 168). That is, as Kara-Murza writes, “they returned to the Caucasus as a grown and strengthened people” (op. cit. p. 609). There is no reason to believe that the situation was different among the Tatars or the Kalmyks.

So was the Decree on Rehabilitation necessary? I think that instead of the Decree, on behalf of the state, it would be necessary 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 commemorate with gratitude 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 after much more numerous nations only four...

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

V.S. Bushin
Original taken from

Image copyright getty Image caption Every year in May, the Tatars celebrate the anniversary of the deportation. This year, the Russian authorities banned the rally in Simferopol

On May 18-20, 1944, NKVD fighters, on orders from Moscow, rounded up almost the entire Tatar population of Crimea to railway cars and sent them to Uzbekistan in 70 echelons.

This is the forced eviction of the Tatars, whom Soviet authority accused of collaborating with the Nazis, was one of the fastest deportations 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 ASSR as part of the indigenization policy.

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

The Crimean Tatar language, together with Russian, was official language autonomy. More than 140 village councils used it.

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

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

Image copyright hatira.ru Image caption Crimean Tatar State Ensemble "Khaitarma". Moscow, 1935

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

This turned many Crimean Tatars against the Soviet regime.

When did the deportation take place?

The main phase of the forced resettlement took place over less than three days, starting at dawn on May 18, 1944 and ending at 4:00 pm on May 20.

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

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

What caused the deportation?

The official reason for the forced resettlement was the accusation of the entire Crimean Tatar people of high treason, "mass extermination of Soviet people" and collaborationism - cooperation 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 resettlement. 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.

Image copyright hatira.ru Image caption Spouses in the Urals, 1953

In the plans of the USSR, the Crimea was a strategic springboard in case of a possible conflict with Turkey, and Stalin wanted to play it safe from possible "saboteurs and traitors", whom he considered the Tatars.

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

Did the Tatars support the Nazis?

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

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 troops because they were captured by the Nazis and wanted to alleviate the difficult conditions of their stay in the prisoner of war 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 the German detachments retreated to Germany. Mostly wives and children who remained on the peninsula were deported.

How did the forced resettlement take place?

Employees of the NKVD entered the Tatar dwellings and announced to the owners that they were being evicted from the Crimea due to treason.

To collect things, gave 15-20 minutes. 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.

Image copyright memory.gov.ua Image caption Mari ASSR. Team at the logging site. 1950

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

During the move, about eight thousand people died, most of them children and the elderly. The most common causes of death are thirst and typhus.

Some people, unable to endure suffering, went crazy. All the property left in the Crimea after the Tatars, the state appropriated to itself.

Where were the Tatars deported to?

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 the deportation for the Tatars?

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

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

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

Image copyright hatira.ru Image caption Alime Ilyasova (right) with her friend, whose name is unknown. Early 1940s

The newcomers had no natural immunity against many local ailments.

What status did they have in Uzbekistan?

The overwhelming majority of the Crimean Tatars were transported to the so-called special settlements - surrounded by armed guards, checkpoints and fenced with barbed wire, the territories more closely resembled labor camps than civilian settlements.

Newcomers were cheap labor, they were used to work in 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 Farkhad hydroelectric power station.

In 1948, Moscow recognized the Crimean Tatars as lifelong migrants. Those who, without the permission of the NKVD, went outside their special settlement, 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 for the Crimean Tatars among local residents, stigmatizing 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 newcomers.

After the deportation, some local residents felt the heads of visitors to check that horns did not grow on them.

Later, when they learned that the Crimean Tatars were of the same faith, the Uzbeks were surprised.

The children of the settlers could receive an education in Russian or Uzbek, but not in Crimean Tatar.

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

This nationality was also forbidden to enter in the passport.

What has changed in Crimea without the Tatars?

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.

The southern regions of Crimea, where the Crimean Tatars used to live, were deserted.

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

"Toponymic repressions" were carried out on the peninsula - most of the 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 the Tatars lasted until the era of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization - the second half of the 1950s. Then the Soviet government softened their living conditions for them, but did not withdraw charges of high treason.

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

Image copyright hatira.ru Image caption Osman Ibrish with his wife Alime. Settlement Kibray, Uzbekistan, 1971

In 1968, the occasion for one of these actions was Lenin's birthday. The authorities dispersed the rally.

Gradually, the Crimean Tatars managed to achieve the expansion of their rights, however, an informal, but no less strict ban on their return to Crimea was in force 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 the Crimea was difficult and was accompanied by land conflicts with local residents who managed to get used to the new land. However, major confrontations were 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.

Others have themselves been banned by Russian authorities from entering Crimea, including Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov.

Does the deportation have signs of genocide?

Some researchers and dissidents believe that the deportation of the Tatars is consistent with the UN definition of genocide.

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

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

Despite this, in most historical writings and diplomatic documents, the forced resettlement of Crimean Tatars is now called deportation, not genocide.

In the Soviet Union, the term "resettlement" was used.

Speaking recently at a forum dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Petro Poroshenko went so far as to compare the Russian government in Crimea (without failing to label it as “occupation” as usual) with “the actions of Stalin, who dreamed of destroying the Tatar people ". It is said loudly... And also - falsely and illiterately. In general, very Poroshenko-like. However, in order to fully understand what kind of absurdity the Ukrainian president made, it is necessary to thoroughly understand the true essence of the events of the spring of 1944 in the Crimea, and, above all, with their prerequisites and causes.

May 10, 1944 Chairman state committee In the 18th century of the defense of the USSR, Joseph Stalin signed a decree “On the Crimean Tatars”, on the basis of which 190 thousand representatives of this nationality were evicted from the peninsula within just 10 days. The place of deportation was mainly Uzbekistan, however, some of them ended up in Kazakhstan and other republics of the USSR. About one and a half thousand Tatars remained on the territory of Crimea - members of the anti-Hitler underground, partisans and those who fought in the Red Army, as well as members of their families.

Tragic story? Undoubtedly. However, before shedding tears over its participants, declaring them, one and all, "innocent victims of Stalinism", let's go back in time even further - to 1941. It was then that the foundation of the events that happened three years later was laid - and by none other than the Crimean Tatars themselves. In the memorandum of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrenty Beria, which, in fact, became the basis for the adoption of the above-mentioned decision of the State Defense Committee, everything was stated with merciless Beria accuracy and directness. No "lyrics" - only numbers and facts.

Do you want to know how many Crimean Tatars deserted from the ranks of the 51st Army, which was retreating from the Crimea? 20 thousand. And how many of them were drafted into the Red Army? Exactly 20 thousand and it was ... A wonderful example of betrayal, unparalleled, one might say! One hundred percent desertion in itself speaks volumes. But if, having fled, like cockroaches before the advancing Nazis, the Tatars had stopped there! It wasn't like that at all. Before the occupants had time to enter the Crimea, the representatives of the Tatars had already rushed to them with an expression of utter devotion and assurances that they were all ready to faithfully serve "Adolf Efendi", recognizing him as their leader.

Such zeal was favorably accepted by the Nazi leaders, which was reported in the first days of 1942 at the first meeting of the Tatar Committee, held in captured Simferopol. The heroic Sevastopol was still fighting, bleeding, but not giving up, and the Crimean mullahs were already howling prayers for the health of the “great Fuhrer”, “the invincible army of the great German people” and the repose of the vile little souls of the killers from the Wehrmacht. Having prayed, they set to work - security, police and auxiliary units of the Nazis were massively formed from the Crimean Tatars. They were especially valued in the SD and the field gendarmerie.

Many mournful words have been written and said about the death camp, which was located during the war years on the territory of the Krasny state farm near Simferopol. With his horrors, he earned the name "Crimean Dachau." Only shot in it was not less than 8 thousand people. However, it was much less mentioned that there were, in fact, two Germans among the executioners in this terrible place - the "doctor" of the camp and its commandant. The rest of the "staff" consisted of Crimean Tatars who served in the 152nd battalion of SD Shuma. This unit was formed, by the way, exclusively on a voluntary basis. The rabble gathered in it showed simply incredible ingenuity in relation to torture and executions. I will give just one example - one of these "know-how" was the destruction of people who were stacked in piles, tied with barbed wire, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Special luck in this case was to hit the lowest layer - there was a chance to suffocate before the flames broke out ...

A real nightmare partisan detachments Crimea were Tatar guides of the fascist Jagd teams and punitive detachments that hunted for them. Perfectly oriented on the terrain, knowing in the mountains, as they say, every stone, every path, these nonhumans over and over again led the Nazis to the places where our soldiers were hiding, their camps and parking lots. Such “specialists” were so in demand for the Third Reich that in 1944, having abandoned part of their troops in the Crimea, the Germans found an opportunity to evacuate them from the peninsula by sea, subsequently forming first the Tatar Mountain Jaeger Regiment of the SS, and then an entire brigade. Big honor...

You can remember a lot more. About the stones that flew in our prisoners when they were driven through the Tatar villages ... About two hectares of Crimean land, which was allocated to each of the Tatars who entered the service of the invaders, and which was taken from the Russian people. About how desperately the Tatar battalions fought in 1944 near Bakhchisarai and Islam-Terek, trying to stop the Red Army going to liberate the Crimea. About the zeal with which they searched for and destroyed throughout the peninsula communists, wounded soldiers of the Red Army, whom the inhabitants tried to hide, as well as Jews and gypsies, in the extermination of which they took an active part.

It never occurs to anyone that by deporting the Tatars from Crimea, among whom at least one in ten was not only tainted by cooperation with the invaders, but had his hands covered in blood up to the elbow, Stalin and Beria did not destroy them, but saved them ?! Returning from the fields of the Great Patriotic War in a year or two, the veterans would hardly have limited themselves to “verbal censure” of traitors ...

It is impossible not to mention one more point. The “international human rights organizations” and other liberal riff-raff that annually shed tears over the “undeservedly deported” Crimean Tatars, for some reason do not weep over other completely similar stories of the same time. Over the internment of 120 thousand Japanese, as well as thousands of Germans and Italians, who were driven behind the "thorn" in 1941 in the United States. Note - not for any specific crimes, and not even "on suspicion". Simply for nationality! And over 600 thousand Germans who perished during their mass expulsion from European countries after the end of the Second World War are also not moaning. They are silent, infections, like a fish on ice ...

But the Germans - not Nazis, not veterans of the Wehrmacht or the SS, but simply who had the misfortune to belong to this nation, were driven in 1945 from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia by the millions! 500-600 thousand - this is only the documented number of dead and dead during the deportation.

I don't blame or justify anyone. It was just such a time - cruel, bloody, terrible ... And some things that cause shudder today with their categoricalness and their scale were completely normal for him, almost universal practice. This is all to the point that it is incorrect, at least, to declare the deportation of 1944 the pinnacle of world atrocities.

Regarding the fact that they arrested and deported in the spring of 1944 entirely "innocent" and "uninvolved" ... Only small arms were seized during the eviction operation so much that it would be enough to arm rifle division! Okay, ten thousand (!) Rifles ... And more than 600 machine guns and mortars - fifty? What is this all hidden for? Shoot at the sparrows? Severe comrades in cornflower blue caps from the department of Beria, even before the start of the deportation, caught more than 5 thousand representatives of the Crimean Tatar population, whose connection with the Nazis was so obvious, and the crimes were so bloody that most of them, without ceremony, threw a noose around their necks. There were many among those trying to hide spies, saboteurs and simply "sleeping" agents left in the liberated territory with very specific tasks from the fascist masters.

I agree that the whole nation cannot be guilty. No one is blaming a whole nation... Let's not dive into emotions, but turn to dispassionate and dry arithmetic. I will give some figures, and everyone is free to draw the following conclusions for himself.

First of all, so that the extremists and their accomplices who have dug in in Ukraine do not try to speak now, Tatar Crimea before the Great Patriotic War was not in any case. Ukrainian, by the way - even more so! According to the 1939 census, more than half a million Russians, more than 200 thousand Tatars, and a little more than 150 thousand Ukrainians lived on the peninsula. Well, and representatives of other nationalities - Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Bulgarians, in much smaller quantities.

Of these same 200 thousand, according to the leaders of the Tatar Committee operating under the occupiers, carelessly done by the leaders themselves, 20 thousand served the Nazis with weapons in their hands. Every tenth ... However, according to many historians, the figure is shamelessly underestimated - actually collaborated with the Nazis (not only in the ranks of the SS, SD and police, but also as guides, informers and servants), at least 35-40 thousand Crimean Tatars. Every fifth... During the deportation, out of 191 thousand transported, according to the report of the NKVD, 191 people died on the way. One in a thousand... This is not a comparison. This is just elementary arithmetic.

During the Nazi occupation in the Crimea, at least 220 thousand of its inhabitants were destroyed and driven into slavery, 45 thousand soldiers of the Red Army captured were killed in the fascist dungeons and camps located on its territory. There were no Crimean Tatars among those. On the other hand, punishers, policemen, guards from the Tatar formations, who faithfully served the occupiers, are fully involved in all these crimes. They made their conscious choice, and everything that happened after that was the retribution for it. At the same time, there were neither mass executions, nor the total sending of all Tatars to camps - only expulsion.

Did the people, whose sons flooded the land of Crimea with the blood of those who peacefully lived on it next to them, lose the right to walk on this land? Everyone can find their own answer to this question. Stalin just found his ...