November 2, 1943 This day will forever remain in the memory of the Karachai people as a “rainy day”.
At dawn of that day, the Karachais at gunpoint, 60,000 soldiers from the NKVD troops, specially attracted for this, were hastily loaded into freight cars and sent to Central Asia.
69,267 people, of which 53.9% were children; 28.1% are women and only 18% are men – mainly old people and war invalids. For almost every deportee, there was one soldier.
The deportation was carried out when the overwhelming majority of the male population was at the front in the ranks of the Soviet army. While the Karachais defended the Soviet Union, the Stalinist regime declared them all traitors and deported them to foreign lands.
A large number of stories about how it could be read in books on deportation. Many families still have grandparents who remember that morning. Each of them has its own story, and all at the same time have a common story.
The horror of the unknown, shock and misunderstanding of what is happening – this is how in a few words you can describe those feelings of everyone, young and old.
But this was not the most difficult moment yet. Difficulties began after. The settlers were allowed to take with them only dry rations, designed for several days, and clothes. On average, up to 50 people were immersed in the “teplushka”, a total of 36 echelons were formed.
For more than 20 days, the settlers were suffocating from cramped conditions and unsanitary conditions, freezing and starving, dying of diseases. At the stops, the doors of the calf wagons were opened ajar, the corpses were hastily unloaded and continued on their way.
When the trains finally arrived, the special settlers were unloaded right in the middle of the steppe. The food was extremely limited. People ate the roots and leaves of plants, cake, frozen potatoes, cake, alfalfa, nettles, and the skin of worn-out shoes. As indicated in the memorandum of the head of the GULAG to the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, more than 70% of the Karachais arrived at the places of settlement without food.
The special settlers were settled in small groups over a vast territory from Northern Kazakhstan to the foothills of the Pamirs, in more than 480 settlements.
From the first days of resettlement, a special commandant regime was established, according to which deported under pain of hard labor were prohibited from moving from one settlement to another or visiting relatives without special passes. They were supposed to report to the special commandant’s office every month. Some had to check in daily.
The eviction of the Karachais at the beginning of winter doomed them to cold, hunger and extinction. A sharp change in natural and climatic conditions, lack of food led to massive loss of life. As a result, more than 30% of those deported died, including 22,000 children.
After the eviction of the Karachais, the territory of the region was divided into three parts. The southern part went to the Georgian SSR, the northern, eastern and part of the western – to the Stavropol Territory, and the western – to the Krasnodar Territory. At the same time, the names of settlements were also changed so that nothing would remind of the Karachai people.
Only after 14 years of exile did the survivors return.
Stalin had long planned to solve the problem of the recalcitrant Caucasian peoples, who had never in fact recognized Soviet power. The war provided a convenient excuse for this. And tens, hundreds of thousands of those killed during the resettlement did not bother anyone, as well as the feelings of the highlanders who were expelled from the land where their ancestors had lived for many centuries.
Initially, the deportation of Karachais, Chechens and Ingush was planned for the autumn of 1942 – this became known back in 1953, during the investigation of the Beria case. However, the tense situation in the Caucasus, where the Germans broke through, and the large anti-Soviet uprising in Chechnya did not allow this to be done.
At dawn on November 2, 1943, within two hours, the innocent and unsuspecting Karachai people – 69,267 people (15,980 families), of which 53.9 percent were children (36,670 children); 28.1 percent of women (19444 women) and only 18 percent – men (12,500 men) – mainly old people and disabled war veterans – at gunpoint of machine guns specially attracted for this 60 thousand soldiers from the NKVD troops, was hastily loaded into freight wagons and sent into the unknown – to the east.
The settlers were allowed to take with them only dry rations, designed for several days, and clothes. On average, up to 50 people were immersed in the heating tank, a total of 36 trains were formed. For more than 20 days, the settlers were suffocating from the cramped conditions and unsanitary conditions, they were freezing and starving, dying of diseases. At the stops, the doors of the calf wagons were opened ajar, the corpses were hastily unloaded and continued on their way. (TsGA RF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 137, l. 206).
The settlers were settled in small groups over a vast territory from Northern Kazakhstan to the foothills of the Pamirs, in more than 480 settlements. The purpose of such resettlement is obvious – the complete assimilation of the people, their disappearance as an ethnos.
From the first days of resettlement, a special commandant regime was established, according to which deported under pain of hard labor were prohibited from moving from one settlement to another or visiting relatives without special passes. They had to report to the special commandant’s office every month.
As indicated in the memorandum of the head of the GULAG to the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, more than 70% of the Karachais arrived at the places of settlement without food. And there was no food at the places – they ate roots, leaves, grass, cake, frozen potatoes, cake, alfalfa, nettles.
The number of deported Karachais, taking into account those deported in the 20-30s, demobilized from the front, who returned from the labor army, was 78.827 people (18.068 families).
From Beria’s report to Stalin: … As of February 1, 1944, 12,342 families of special settlers-Karachais were settled on the territory of the Kazakh SSR, with 45,500 people in them, of which in the South Kazakhstan region. – 6643 families in the amount of 25216 people, in the Dzhambul region. – 5699 families – 20285 people. To serve the special settlers, 24 special commandant’s offices were organized, incl. in the South Kazakhstan region – 13 and in the Dzhambul region – 11 ″.
In all areas of settlement of the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR, many requests are received by the regional departments and commandant’s offices of the NKVD regarding the search for family members and joining them. In Dzhambul oblast alone, more than 2,000 such statements were received. In some settlements, facts of sympathy for the Karachais were registered by individuals and the local population. (TsGA RF, f. 5451, op. 12, d. 212, l. 283).
As a result of forced deportation on the road and from hunger and cold in the first months of exile, according to official data, 43,247 people died, including 22,000 children. The mortality rate was so high that the level of 1943 (88 thousand) was reached by the Karachais only by 1959, i.e. 16 years after the eviction. According to the 1959 census, the number of Karachais was 81,000.
