Compiled by the Crimean Tatar People
from the Materials of a Census conducted by the People Themselves
(appendix to 1971 statement, CCE 31.13 [1], 6 pages + 5 tables).
The census was conducted amongst those people who before the deportation had lived in nine villages in different parts of the Crimea. It supplements a 1966 census (sent to the 23rd Party Congress) which covered 21 villages. The results of the two censuses are compared in the document.
The document contains five tables and a text divided into three sections.
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I. The Crimean Tatar people in the Fatherland War (1941-1944)
These are some of the reported facts:
At the beginning of the war 11,647 people lived in the nine villages, of which 2,428 were men of call-up age; 1,820 fought in the army, and more than 286 in the resistance and the underground; 1,107 participants in the war perished.
In the village of Kuvush, which was burned down by the Germans, there were 215 people in the resistance. For supporting the resistance, the Germans burned to the ground 80 mountain villages in all.
Table 3 compares the data on the Crimean Tatar people as a whole, obtained on the basis of the materials of the 1966 census, and the data on the nine villages. The evidence of the latter contains no significant differences (i.e. gives no lower figures for the number who participated in the war, in comparison with the data of 1966). For example, it is shown that out of the total population (302,000) before the war there were 95,000 men over 18 years: 53,000 fought in the army and 12,000 in the resistance and the underground. 30,000 participants in the war perished.
Summing up the conclusions from the data of the census, the document charges that the Soviet people have been deceived by the press and other forms of propaganda which have kept quiet about the part played by Crimean Tatars in the war and about their bravery (40% were decorated with orders and medals, including nine as Heroes of the Soviet Union) and sacrifices.
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II. The Barbarous Deportation of the Crimean Tatar People in 1944
“a Treacherous and Hostile Action Designed to Undermine the Foundations of Soviet Authority in the National Question”.
Such facts as these, in particular, are cited:
238,000 people were deported in all, of which 113,000 were children (under 18) and 93,000 were women.
From the nine villages (census of 1971) 9,494 people were deported, including 5,078 children, 3,280 women, 532 resistance and underground workers, and 347 sick people and invalids.
At the end of the section the systematic nature of the annexation of national territory and of the seizure of the national heritage and possessions is examined.
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III. The Crimean Tatar People in the Vice of the Shameful Regime of Punitive Surveillance.
The regime of punitive surveillance was a premeditated and hostile action against the deported peoples. It was a regime of starvation and epidemics, and of political, economic and moral repression, which would inevitably lead, and in reality did lead, to high mortality, backwardness in education and degradation of language and culture.” In table 5 data are cited of the mortality rate over a year and a half (May 1944-December 1945). Of the total of 238,000 deported, 110,000 (46%) died; in two villages (1971 census) out of 1,647 deported from the village of Urkust, 951 (58%) died; out of 673 deported from the village of Bag, 269 (40%) died.
The concluding part of the document notes that millions of copies of various books are disseminating libels against the Crimean Tatar people and that Party and State organs have all the necessary means to bring this to an end.
Demands are formulated for a return home, a coordinated settlement, the restoration of the Crimean ASSR, the withdrawal from circulation of libellous literature and, lastly, for the institution of criminal proceedings against those guilty of creating the regime of punitive surveillance.
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NOTE
- A minor error.
In fact, an appendix to a separate appeal to the 24th Party Congress by 60,000 people, the text of which is document number 630 in the Samizdat Archive. This post (CCE 31.14) is document number 1727 in the Archive.
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