Denys Shtilierman@DenShtilierman
Today we remember and honor the memory of all the victims of one of the most brutal crimes committed by the Soviet regime — the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people.
On May 18, 1944, one of the most brutal operations of the Stalinist regime began. Within two days, approximately 200,000 Crimean Tatars — from infants to the elderly — were deported from Crimea. People were driven from their homes, given 15–30 minutes to pack. They were transported in freight cars, like livestock, for thousands of kilometers — to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Urals, and Siberia. Without water, without food, without medical care. According to various estimates, between 18 and 46 percent of those deported died en route or in the first years of exile. An entire people was wiped from their own land in two days.
It was genocide. In 2015, the Verkhovna Rada officially recognized the 1944 deportation as genocide against the Crimean Tatar people.
The most horrific thing is that history is repeating itself right now. The very same empire that transported Crimean Tatars in freight cars in 1944 is doing exactly the same thing to Ukrainians today. Mariupol, where Russian occupiers killed tens of thousands of civilians and took the survivors to filtration camps. Melitopol, Berdyansk, Kherson, Enerhodar — from these places, people are being taken deep into Russia, their documents confiscated, and they are forced to obtain Russian passports. Over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted and taken to Russian families to be raised as Russians. It is the same method. The same mechanism. The same empire.
Since 2014, Russia has returned to Crimea and resumed persecuting the Crimean Tatars. The Mejlis is banned. Dozens of activists are in prison on trumped-up charges. The Crimean Tatar language is being squeezed out of schools. Mosques are being destroyed again. Celebrating national holidays is being banned again. Once again, people are being deported to Russia for criticizing the authorities.
This is no coincidence. It is the systematic policy of Russian imperialism, which has not changed since 1944. The same willingness to destroy entire peoples for the sake of preserving the empire. The same disregard for human life. The same mechanism of filtration, deportation, and assimilation.
We remember those who were deported in 1944. We remember those who died on the way. We remember those who died in exile, never to return home. We remember those who fought for decades for the right to return to their homeland. And we remember those whom Russia is killing and abducting today — in Mariupol, in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories.
We cannot bring back those who died in 1944. But we can ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. And for that to happen, the empire that did this and continues to do so must fall. Forever.
