The operation
The deportation was carried out on 14–26 November 1944. People were given hours to pack; many men were at the front at the time. Kurds and Hemshins were deported together with the Ahıska Turks.
Numbers
According to NKVD data, 92,307 Turks were deported from 212 villages; other counts give between 92,307 and 94,955 people, and about 115,000 together with Kurds and Hemshins. By official records, 52,163 people were settled in the Uzbek SSR, 25,598 in the Kazakh SSR and 10,546 in the Kyrgyz SSR.
The road
People travelled about a month in freight wagons. By 17 November 1944, 81,234 had been dispatched; the last trains reached Tashkent at the end of January 1945.
Losses
By different counts, between 12,500 and 15,000 people died on the way and in the first years; there are higher estimates too.
Special settlement
The deportees lived under the supervision of commandants. A decree of 1948 declared that they were to stay in their places of settlement forever. The decree of 28 April 1956 lifted the special-settlement restrictions but did not allow them to go home. On 14 November 1989 the USSR Supreme Soviet declared the forced resettlement of peoples illegal and criminal.
Memory
On 14 November the people remember those who were taken. On the Day of Remembrance page you can add a name to the Book of Memory, record an elder’s voice and invite your kin; the map of the scattering shows the path of the people from 1944 to today.