May 18 – Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide
On May 18, Ukraine commemorates the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people — one of the most tragic chapters in modern history. It was on this day in 1944 that Stalin's regime began the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from their historical homeland, Crimea.
At dawn on May 18, a large-scale operation by the NKVD began simultaneously across the Crimean Peninsula. Armed officers stormed into Crimean Tatar homes, threatening residents with weapons and forcing them to pack within 10 to 20 minutes for forced eviction. By 8 a.m. that day, 90,000 Crimean Tatars had already been loaded into 25 freight trains.
The deadly journey to special settlement locations in these cargo wagons lasted an average of 2 to 3 weeks. During the transport — in cramped, unsanitary conditions without food, water, or medical care — between 7,000 and 7,900 Crimean Tatars died from hunger and disease.
Settlers from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR were relocated to Crimea and deliberately housed in the homes of deported Crimean Tatars. The repressive Soviet regime completely altered and distorted Crimean toponymy, replacing Crimean Tatar place and street names with Russian ones.
For decades, the tragic history of the Crimean Tatar deportation was silenced. The language and culture of the people of Ukraine were suppressed. The Crimean Tatars were not only stripped of their homeland, but also of their name, language, history, and identity.
After Stalin’s death, the Crimean Tatars were still not granted their rights or allowed to return to their homeland. In reality, the exile continued. Despite the ban, starting in 1967, many Crimean Tatars made repeated attempts to resettle in Crimea. The Crimean Tatar national movement for return became one of the most effective and vivid protest movements in the USSR. However, a truly large-scale return, a repatriation, began only after 1987.
It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in an independent Ukraine, that we could finally honor the memory of the victims of this genocide and speak the truth about crimes against humanity.
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