In the framework of the ongoing research of the International Scientific Conference, at the beginning of 2009, a digest of materials, Evacuation - Recalling the Past, was published. This book is dedicated to evacuation of people, enterprises, and organizations in 1941-1942 from the Western parts of the USSR to the East of the country.

  On June 22nd, in the Central State Archive of Kazakhstan, Mitsva Association organized a Roundtable to present the book Evacuation - Recalling the Past. Thirty five people came to learn about the book and discuss topics for the future conference.

  The Central State Archive of film, photo documents, and audio records prepared a 15-minute film - a collection of film documents from the Great War II. On a huge screen, we were watching black and white authentic chronicles of tremendous battles and hard work, grief from losses and joy of the Great Victory! This film has become a good epigraph to the meeting.
  The Roundtable was opened by Alexander Baron, President of Mitsva Association. He told us about what had moved him to start this research related to the difficult time in the life of our country. "We have discovered a lot of invaluable materials about those days when a huge number of people were evacuated to Kazakhstan. There were cities with twice increased population who received evacuated, refugees, wounded soldiers of the Soviet Army. We have found researchers of this issue not only in Kazakhstan, also in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. We were joint by researchers in Canada. This topic is interesting to Washington Museum of Holocaust and Museum of Catastrophe in Jerusalem. We plan to have a new conference in October 2010. I suggest we discuss this topic together".

  At the meeting, archive and museum representatives, historians-researches, representatives of the Central State Library and the Assembly of Kazakhstan Peoples were present. Makash Tatimov, Professor, Doctor of Politology, Rector of Central Asian University looked at this issue from a demographic point of view. Gabit Nuradil, Chairman of the Assembly of Kazakhstan People reminded that President Nazarbayev pays a lot of attention to patriotic education of younger generation and this work on evacuation is very important from this aspect. Oleg Belonosov, Director of the Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation, underlined that June 22 is a special day when the Great War II started. Nikolay Krapivnitskiy, Deputy Director of the Central State Archive recited war documents. Zarema Shaidanova, Deputy Director of the National Library, noted that while people who had gone through horrors of war are alive, we should record as much as possible. Adilgazy Kaiyrbekov, Director of S. Mukanov and G. Musrepov Museum, told us about a great positive impact of writers evacuated to Kazakhstan on the development of Kazakh literature. Elena Gribanova, Chief of the Department of Historic Publications of the Kazakhstan President’s Archive, suggested a topic for the future conference "Evacuated Soviet Culture in Kazakhstan". Anargul Zulkasheva, Chairman of the Central Archive of the President, said that they have already started working in this director and their archive contains many documents about evacuated scientists and art representatives. Isaak Grinberg, Leader of the History Club of Mitsva Association, pointed out that the Jewish community is the first to start research evacuation issues in Kazakhstan. Alla Seitova, Director of the Central State Archive of Film, Photo, and Audio Documents, suggested a topic for the future conference "Impact of Evacuated People in Culture Development"

  Alexander Baron summarized the meeting results: "We have achieved the goals of this meeting. I thank everyone present and look forward to seeing you in October of 2010."

Lyudmila Starodubova