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Authors: Laurence Rees
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to visit his father in this remote outpost. He found him ‘bitter; he was very disappointed – he was very upset that the President had done that to him’.
Roosevelt wanted rid of George Earle. And that remains hard for his son to take. ‘I think it was very unusual and very autocratic’, says Lawrence Earle. ‘Because I mean in a democracy you don't do that sort of thing, but the President thought in wartime he could do it and he did it. Of course, he got away with it’.
PUNISHMENT DEPORTATIONS
In May 1944 – the same month as George Earle had his fruitless meeting with Roosevelt in the White House – Stalin was considering a proposal to deport an entire ethnic group within the Soviet Union. The document, dated 10th May, 52 was from Beria, head of the NKVD, and concerned the fate of the Crimean Tatars. Around two hundred thousand of them lived in the Crimea, on the north shore of the Black Sea, alongside the Russians. The Tatars had their own language, customs and dress; they were also followers of Islam. In the 1930s they had suffered Soviet persecution 53 and now, during the German ocupation, many of their villages had been raided by ethnic Russian-dominated partisan units.
Without question, a number of Tatars had collaborated with the Germans during their occupation between November 1941 and spring 1944. Nearly twenty thousand of them, selected from prisoners of war, had served in German-organized self-defence units. But although it is true that the German military commanders considered the Tatars as more likely to collaborate than theethnic Russian population of Crimea, it is also the case that tens of thousands of Tatars served loyally in the Red Army.
Now that the Crimea had been recaptured, Stalin had to decide how the Tatars should be treated. Would it be possible to see in Stalin's response evidence of ‘the deep-seated changes which have taken place in the character of the Russian State and Government’ that Churchill claimed to have detected?
No, not at all – Stalin acted true to form by authorizing Beria to deport the entire Crimean Tatar nation into the wasteland of Uzbekistan in the Soviet interior. Every single one of them would suffer because of the actions of a minority. And whilst it was certainly a monumentally unjust method of dealing with the ‘problem’ of the Tatars, it had the benefit, as far as the Soviet authorities were concerned, of being swift and decisive.
The plan was to arrest the entire nation in little more than one day. ‘It was a big operation’, says former NKVD Lieutenant Nikonor Perevalov, 54 who took part in the action. ‘The Crimea is a big area, and in order to evict them you need a lot of people’. Around twenty-three thousand NKVD troops took part in the action, and, just as they had in eastern Poland in 1940, the NKVD first carried out a careful reconnaissance of the area for several weeks before the day appointed for the arrests. When the locals asked why so many troops were suddenly stationed in the Crimea, behind the front line, the NKVD were told to reply that they were ‘just on leave from the front’.
At dawn on 18 May 1944 the NKVD entered every Tatar village. ‘I came and knocked on the door [of the first house targeted]’, says Nikonor Perevalov. ‘The light switched on and they asked: “Who is it?”’ Perevalov told them he was a representative of the Soviet state and they should open the door immediately. Once inside, he read out the decree announcing their deportation: ‘And of course they all started crying and screaming, and the people were frightened. But they didn't fight against us. They didn't put up resistance. No one tried to run away. They received us in an obedient way’. Perevalov says he felt personally ‘unhappy’ as he saw the devastated Tatar family in front of him:‘I was sorry for them on a personal level because, for example, an elderly person was carried out on a stretcher to the truck…. She was so weak that
Roosevelt wanted rid of George Earle. And that remains hard for his son to take. ‘I think it was very unusual and very autocratic’, says Lawrence Earle. ‘Because I mean in a democracy you don't do that sort of thing, but the President thought in wartime he could do it and he did it. Of course, he got away with it’.
PUNISHMENT DEPORTATIONS
In May 1944 – the same month as George Earle had his fruitless meeting with Roosevelt in the White House – Stalin was considering a proposal to deport an entire ethnic group within the Soviet Union. The document, dated 10th May, 52 was from Beria, head of the NKVD, and concerned the fate of the Crimean Tatars. Around two hundred thousand of them lived in the Crimea, on the north shore of the Black Sea, alongside the Russians. The Tatars had their own language, customs and dress; they were also followers of Islam. In the 1930s they had suffered Soviet persecution 53 and now, during the German ocupation, many of their villages had been raided by ethnic Russian-dominated partisan units.
Without question, a number of Tatars had collaborated with the Germans during their occupation between November 1941 and spring 1944. Nearly twenty thousand of them, selected from prisoners of war, had served in German-organized self-defence units. But although it is true that the German military commanders considered the Tatars as more likely to collaborate than theethnic Russian population of Crimea, it is also the case that tens of thousands of Tatars served loyally in the Red Army.
Now that the Crimea had been recaptured, Stalin had to decide how the Tatars should be treated. Would it be possible to see in Stalin's response evidence of ‘the deep-seated changes which have taken place in the character of the Russian State and Government’ that Churchill claimed to have detected?
No, not at all – Stalin acted true to form by authorizing Beria to deport the entire Crimean Tatar nation into the wasteland of Uzbekistan in the Soviet interior. Every single one of them would suffer because of the actions of a minority. And whilst it was certainly a monumentally unjust method of dealing with the ‘problem’ of the Tatars, it had the benefit, as far as the Soviet authorities were concerned, of being swift and decisive.
The plan was to arrest the entire nation in little more than one day. ‘It was a big operation’, says former NKVD Lieutenant Nikonor Perevalov, 54 who took part in the action. ‘The Crimea is a big area, and in order to evict them you need a lot of people’. Around twenty-three thousand NKVD troops took part in the action, and, just as they had in eastern Poland in 1940, the NKVD first carried out a careful reconnaissance of the area for several weeks before the day appointed for the arrests. When the locals asked why so many troops were suddenly stationed in the Crimea, behind the front line, the NKVD were told to reply that they were ‘just on leave from the front’.
At dawn on 18 May 1944 the NKVD entered every Tatar village. ‘I came and knocked on the door [of the first house targeted]’, says Nikonor Perevalov. ‘The light switched on and they asked: “Who is it?”’ Perevalov told them he was a representative of the Soviet state and they should open the door immediately. Once inside, he read out the decree announcing their deportation: ‘And of course they all started crying and screaming, and the people were frightened. But they didn't fight against us. They didn't put up resistance. No one tried to run away. They received us in an obedient way’. Perevalov says he felt personally ‘unhappy’ as he saw the devastated Tatar family in front of him:‘I was sorry for them on a personal level because, for example, an elderly person was carried out on a stretcher to the truck…. She was so weak that
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