page_title: Deportation of the Kalmyks
section_title: Deportation
hierarchical_section_title: Deportation of the Kalmyks / Deportation
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Фрагмент памятника "Исход и Возвращение", Элиста, Калмыкия
context_page_description: The Kalmyk deportations of 1943, codename Operation Ulusy was the Soviet deportation of more than 93,000 people of Kalmyk nationality, and non-Kalmyk women with Kalmyk husbands, on 28–31 December 1943. Families and individuals were forcibly relocated in cattle wagons to special settlements for forced labor in Siberia. Kalmyk women married to non-Kalmyk men were exempted from the deportations. The government's official reason for the deportation was an accusation of Axis collaboration during World War II based on the approximately 5,000 Kalmyks who fought in the Nazi-affiliated Kalmykian Cavalry Corps. The government refused to acknowledge that more than 23,000 Kalmyks served in the Red Army and fought against Axis forces at the same time.
  NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria and his deputy commissar Ivan Serov implemented the forced relocation on direct orders from Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Up to 10,000 servicemen from the NKVD-NKGB troops participated in the deportation. It was part of the Soviet forced settlement program and population transfers that affected several million Soviet ethnic minorities between the 1930s and the 1950s.
context_section_description: During World War II, eight ethnic groups were expelled from their native lands by the Soviet government: the Volga Germans, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, the Crimean Tatars, the Meskhetian Turks and the Kalmyks. Approximately 650,000 people were deported from the Caucasus region  in 1943 and 1944 and a total of 3,332,589 people were deported during the entire war.
  Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, championed the Kalmyk deportation, stating that the Kalmyks were "unreliable". The decision was formally advanced by the State Defense Committee and approved by Stalin in October 1943. On 27 October 1943, NKVD deputy Ivan Serov arrived in Elista to begin preparations for the mass deportation. He met local party members at the office of the former First Secretary of the Kalmyk Communist Party and announced that the Kalmyks would be deported. When asked for the reason, Serov stated that it was because the Kalmyks "left the front and joined the Germans". That same month, NKVD deputy V.V. Chernyshov held a meeting in Moscow with NKVD representatives from Altai, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk and Novosibirsk to discuss the resettlement of the Kalmyks to these areas. The Kalmyk region, including its largest town of Elista, was divided into several operative districts. An NKVD operative was assigned to each district and required to develop plans to carry out the deportations, including mapping railway routes and identifying the number of trucks and soldiers necessary. 
  On 27 December, the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formally abolished by the Soviet government. Parts of its former territory were assigned to Astrakhan, Stalingrad, Rostov, Stavropol, and Dagestan. The former capital of Elista was renamed to Stepnoy. Resolution No. 1432 425 of the Soviet of People's Commissars, formally determining the resettlement of the Kalmyks, was adopted on 28 December 1943. It was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov but not made public.
  On the morning of 28 December 1943, NKVD agents entered the homes of the Kalmyks and announced the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, requiring the immediate deportation of Kalmyks to Siberia. The Decree included formal accusations of Nazi collaboration, anti-Soviet acts, and terrorism. The Kalmyks were given 12 hours to pack their belongings. They were allowed to carry up to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) of property per family, and multiple families had to share space in one truck. Soviet soldiers searched the Kalmyk houses and confiscated firearms, anti-Soviet literature, and foreign currency. Every person of Kalmyk ethnicity, including women, children and the elderly, were loaded onto trucks and sent to nearby railway stations. Only non-Kalmyks and Kalmyk women married to men of ethnic groups, not subject to deportation, were allowed to stay. Soviet forces surrounded Kalmyk settlements from the outset to prevent any potential resistance. At the start of the deportation, 750 Kalmyks were arrested as "gang members" or "anti-Soviet elements".
  The Soviet government initially employed 4,421 NKVD agents, 1,226 soldiers, and 1,355 trucks as part of the operation. This number increased to 10,000 servicemen from the NKVD-NKGB troops, diverted from the Eastern Front. State Security Major General Markeyev, the Ivanovo Oblast NKVD Chief, oversaw the deportation.
  The deportation was given the code name "Operation Ulusy". and affected 93,139 Kalmyks, including 26,359 families. Only three Kalmyk families avoided deportation. The operation proceeded as planned, with no security incidents reported. The Kalmyks were packed into cattle carts and loaded onto 46 east-bound trains. They were sent on a journey to remote areas of over a thousand miles away. One witness recalled that they traveled for two weeks, with no opportunity to practice basic hygiene. Another witness described that the kids slept on the bunks, while the grown ups slept on the floor of the wagons. They made a hole on the floor, placed suitcases around it and used it as a toilet. Meals were available, though only once p
caption: Cattle wagons used for the Soviet deportations
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