Ukrainian victims of Soviet repression in Kazakhstan

The lists of 13 thousand and 54 people from Ukraine repressed by the Soviet authorities who served their sentences in Kazakhstan have been placed on the official website of the Security Service [SBU].  According to the SBU Press Service, the information was provided by the Committee for National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan as part of their cooperation in reinstating historical fact regarding the times of mass terror.

At present SBU is taking a number of measures to process the documents of the repressions of the totalitarian regime of the former USSR and to inform the Ukrainian public about their contents.

One of the most important tasks is to establish the fate of all fellow country people who were victims of repression and are buried outside Ukraine.

The State Branch Archive of the SBU has therefore approached the archival departments of other countries requesting that they provide the archival files of Ukrainians and people originally from Ukraine who served sentences or were repressed beyond Ukraine’s borders, for example, in Kuban, Beresteishchyna, in the steppe region of Kazakhstan and other areas.

Over the last two years the Central Special State Archive of the Kazakhstan Committee for National Security has provided information about victims of political repression from Ukraine who served sentences between the 1920s and 1950s.  These include 5 thousand 906 Ukrainians imprisoned in the labour camp “Steppag” (near Karaganda).and 7 thousand 148 people in other labour camps.