May 18 is commemorated as a Memorial Day of the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people. This day in 1944, Stalin began an operation to deport the entire population of Crimean Tatars who survived the German occupation of the peninsula.Over 200,000 Tatars, baselessly accused of collaborating with the Nazis, were expelled in just two days. In packed and locked railroad cattle cars and with few provisions and water, they were sent on an arduous journey to remote rural locations in Central Asia and Siberia. Over 46% of the Crimean Tatar people perished during the trip and in the first two years of the exile due to the harsh conditions. A year after the deportation when World War II ended, demobilized Crimean Tatar soldiers were sent from the Soviet Army directly into exile too.
OP-ED
Olena Makarenko: Erasing Crimean Tatars from history in Crimea
A man in a mask lights candles forming the Emblem of the Crimean Tatars as he commemorates the 76th anniversary of the deportation of the indigenous population of the Crimea by the Soviet Union, at the Independence Square in Kyiv on May 18, 2020. Crimea's Tatars commemorated 76 years since their deportation by Soviet dictator Stalin in 1944.
