00:00KONIEC
00:03Every year, on 31 May,
00:06people in Kazakhstan remember
00:08millions killed in the famine
00:09and political persecutions of the early
00:12Soviet era. A solemn ceremony
00:14mourns the loss of innocent lives
00:16and a nation that could be.
00:21By the 1930s, having
00:24stabilized their authority,
00:25the Bolsheviks decided it was time to accelerate
00:28the country's industrialization.
00:30The policy of collective farms forced
00:32nomadic Kazakhs to give up their lifestyle
00:34and surrender their livestock.
00:36The Red Army slaughtered
00:48the other half of cattle, unable to
00:50feed it. 40 million turned
00:52to five. For a nation whose primary
00:54source of food was cattle, this
00:56meant a gruesome, hungry death.
00:58As a result, out of six
01:00million Kazakhs, approximately two
01:02million died of starvation and
01:03600,000 more relocated to China,
01:06Iran and Afghanistan, hoping to
01:08avoid a similar fate.
01:11Kazakh intelligentsia criticized the
01:14government for excessive policies that
01:15led to famine and mass deaths.
01:17For this outright rebellion, they were
01:20arrested, exiled and executed.
01:22This is Karlaq, one of the largest
01:25labor camps in the USSR, located in the
01:27middle of the Kazakh steppe.
01:29Its vast territory was once compared
01:31to the size of France.
01:32From 1931 till 1959, about a million
01:35people passed through the camp.
01:37For others, the outcome was even more
01:39immediate. They were executed.
01:41Among them was Rahat Amanbaev's
01:43grandfather Amanbaev Kaspakbaev.
01:57According to the documents, which Rahat
01:59was able to get only after the
02:01collapse of the Soviet Union, Amanbaev was
02:03accused of being a fascist,
02:05atrotskiist and helping suspected
02:07dissidents.
02:31After spending their eight years enduring
02:34hardship and abuse, she took her kids from
02:36from their uncle and moved away to avoid
02:38discrimination and harassment.
02:44One of the prominent figures who faced
02:46such a fate was Seken Sifulin, a
02:48Kazakh poet, a promoter of the
02:50Kazakh language and once the head
02:52of the Kazakh government.
02:54He was championing Kazakh identity
02:56and attributes, for which he was
02:58accused of being a nationalist and
03:00an anti-Soviet. The irony was that
03:02he was a revolutionary and a Bolshevik.
03:05It was on November 24th.
03:08It was on November 24th.
03:10Two of them came to the house.
03:11Two of them came to the house.
03:13They said,
03:15you are Seken Sifulin?
03:16Yes, we will show you the paper.
03:19And Seken Sifulin immediately
03:21got red, and then
03:23got red.
03:24Sifulin's little son died on a train
03:27when he and his mother were deported.
03:29His father and older brother were also executed.
03:31His younger brother survived
03:33by a miracle.
03:34From 1937 till 1957,
03:37the Sifulin family lived under
03:39the label of the enemy of the people.
03:41No university wanted to admit an enemy of the people.
03:57When she finally got admitted to the Zoological Institute,
04:00someone denounced her,
04:01and she had to finish her education in secret.
04:04Her father, Seken's little brother,
04:06couldn't hold a job for 20 years.
04:08Each time someone found out
04:10he was an enemy of the people,
04:11and he was fired.
04:14When Stalin died in 1953,
04:17many people were amnestied
04:19and rehabilitated.
04:20There was a test,
04:21the proof of the methods
04:22that served as the foundation
04:24of my father's arrest
04:26was completely rehabilitated.
04:29Both Sifulin and Kaspakpaev
04:31were rehabilitated in 1957.
04:33In 1993,
04:35independent Kazakhstan adopted a law
04:36on rehabilitation of victims
04:38of political repressions,
04:39restoring their good names
04:40and compensating
04:41the families.
04:42Kazakhstan is continuing
04:44to examine archival documents
04:46of the Soviet era.
04:47Just three years ago,
04:48a special commission
04:49rehabilitated 300,000 people.
04:52The country makes every effort
04:53to commemorate those
04:54who fell victim to the Red Terror.
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