Incitement to ethnic hatred: in occupied Crimea, a schoolteacher called Crimean Tatars “traitors”
A scandal broke out in a school in the village of Dachne of Sudak district, after a literature teacher, Olena Rudenko, justified the deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944. The teacher told the students that the Crimean Tatars were traitors - “they helped the German occupiers to capture Crimea".
Parents of schoolchildren will address the public and plan to apply to the appropriate authorities for publicity.
The mother of 4th grader Samira Aliyeva- Safinaz Aliyeva announced it on Facebook.
At school, kids were given the task of preparing a story about their grandparents who went through World War II. Aliyeva’s daughter told how her great-grandfather fought on the front lines, was seriously wounded, and returned home.
“After returning, all the Crimean Tatar people were deported and our grandparents were also deported from Crimea. My grandfather did not live long - after one year of deportation, he died. My grandmother was left alone with five children", - the schoolgirl’s mother wrote.
According to her, after the story of the schoolgirl, the teacher told the class the following:
“I will now tell you why the Crimean Tatars were deported. They were deported because they were traitors, and they helped the German occupiers to capture Crimea”, - Aliyeva quoted the words of the teacher.
The mother added that her daughter immediately felt the disapproving looks of her classmates - non-Crimean Tatars.
“I learned the same thing from one parent in our class, who called my husband. Their daughter came home in tears. Our children were psychologically and morally traumatized. All the parents in our class are outraged. We demand that the Ministry of Education of Crimea should give an appropriate assessment of the teacher’s actions”, - she stressed.
What is known
- The forced eviction of the Crimean Tatar people from their historical homeland, Crimea, took place on May 18-21, 1944.
- Every year on May 18, the world commemorates the victims of the deportation of Crimean Tatars. In 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognized the deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide.
- Since 2016, Ukraine has been officially commemorating the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide.
- On October 23, 2020, the film about the fate of the Crimean Tatars won the major prize at an international festival in Turkey.
