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"Kalmyks in the late 19th century. Picture taken in the Salsky Raion of the Don Host Oblast." The photo and its caption were both taken from the Wiki article about the Kalmyks.
Estimates of the death toll from the deportation vary; a 2012 news story about the deportation in The Moscow Times says that "Several thousand Kalmyks died on the horrifying journey in freezing cattle cars, and about one-fifth died of hunger, cold and disease during the first five years of forced exile."
Full story at Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty...
Kalmyks are a Mongol-speaking and predominantly Buddhist ethnic group -- one of several that were deported en masse in the 1940s by Stalin's Soviet government, which accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany.
On December 28-29, 1943, almost 100,000 Kalmyks were loaded into cattle cars headed for Siberia.
According to unofficial estimates, at least one-third of those who were forced onto the trains died during the journey.
Those who survived were allowed to return to Kalmykia in 1956.
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