Exile: Recalling the 1944 Deportation

Abstract

Just before dawn on May 18, 1944, the Tatars living in Crimea were gathered and deported en masse to Soviet Central Asia and the Ural Mountains. While planned, the deportation had been kept so secret that even the NKVD soldiers commanded to carry out Stalin’s order did not know about it until the very last minute. In this chapter, the Crimean Tatars’ narratives of deportation are explored according to the common elements, from the knock on the door when soldiers came to get them, to the first impressions of exile. The personal testimony has been arranged in chronological order following the process of deportation itself, although consultants skipped back and forward in retelling. The strategy involves presenting not one person’s complete story but components of several. This is not to gloss over individual differences, but to capture one of the most significant qualities of the narratives: even though the population was scattered across the Ural Mountains and Central Asia, the stories of deportation retain certain key elements across republics and generations. In light of the materials the Soviets produced to contradict the Tatar story, this is significant.