23 February 2007, 22:53
Chechnya remembers victims of 1944 deportation
February 23 is marked in Chechnya as the day of memory and national mourning. In February 1944, under the Kremlin's order, more than half a million Chechens and Ingushes were deported from the places of their permanent residence.
"For the Chechen nation, February 23 it first of all a tragic date, and not the Day of Fatherland Defenders. In 1944, the whole of our nation was deported, under far-fetched accusations of complicity to Hitlerite fascists, to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Nobody will say today, how many tens of thousands tombs we had left on the way and during the first months of deportation," Said-Ali Kantaev, 74, a resident of the Republic, reminds. "Out of 12 members of our family, only my brother and I have survived. And this happened practically in every family."
"Today, they like to speak about the atrocities of Stalin's regime, that this deportation was illegal, and so forth, however, for some reason, the law on rehabilitation of repressed peoples actually does not work," a 40-years old teacher of one of Grozny higher schools thinks.
Today, Chechnya marks February 23 as the Day of Memory and National Mourning.
Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent
