Today, on the 18th of May is a Day of Memory for the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide.
On the 18th of May, 1944 the deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland was started. In the best traditions of the historic Machiavelli over 100 thousand Crimean Tatars were taken from Crimea in special settlements by an order of the State Defense Committee of the USSR. Among the night guards raised people from beds and like cattle placed them to the “boxcars”. They could not even sit down, so tightly they were stuffed into the “boxcars”. For many captives this trip was the last – they died standing.
And it all happened in a country that had not completed the war against Nazi Germany and where the last shot at the enemy was still far. At the front the best soldier died from the bullets of the enemy. And their families at the same time were destroyed by those, whom they gave their lives. What for?!
A large number of immigrants died in places of expulsion from hunger and diseases in 1944-1945. Estimates of the number of victims during this period are very different: from 15-25%, according to various Soviet official bodies, to 46%, according to the activists of the Crimean Tatar movement who collected information about victims in 1960. According to CAP UzSSR, for only 6 months of 1944, since arriving in UzSSR to the end of the year the 16,052 (10.6%) of people have died”.
We remember and will not forget!
The leader of the European Party of Ukraine
Mykola Katerynchuk