On November 10th, at the Shymkent House of Friendship, a presentation of an exhibition of archive documents and the book "Evacuation: Resurrecting the Past" took place. The movable exhibition was organized by Mitsva Association, Jewish Cultural and Community Centers of Shymkent.

Chairpersons of Ethnical Cultural Centers, Director of the Oblast Archive, Directors of museums, Representatives of the Museum of People’s Friendship and of the Oblast Library named after Pushkin, research scientists, students from the University History Department, members of the Jewish Community, press, and television were present at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

The exhibition was opened by the Chairman of the Jewish Cultural Center Eduard Atran. He shared recollections of his grandfather who had been evacuated from Ukraine and stayed in Kazakhstan after the war. A member of the research expert group of the Peoples’ Assembly of the South Kazakhstan Oblast Almira Shomanbayeva presented a report on the related matter.

Alexander Baron, President of Mitsva Association came for the meeting from Almaty. He made a presentation of the book "Evacuation: Resurrecting the Past", introduced participants to materials of this publication. Alexander Baron offered everybody interested to meet in October 2010 at the historic conference in Almaty to continue the research. He also presented books on evacuation published by Mitsva to the museum of the House of Friendship, to Oblast Archive, Museum of Repressed Citizens, Oblast Library, and to research scientists.

Nina Viktorovna, member of our Community, shared her recollections of the evacuation. She was evacuated with her family from Kharkov to Kazakhstan. The tree-year-old girl could remember how Shymkent people shared their clothes, food, and shelter with evacuated. She brought at the meeting war letters written by her father from the front, and the notification of the death of her father received at the end of 1944. Her family stayed to live in Shymkent after the war. Nina graduated from the Teachers Training Institute and worked as a teacher.

Of great interest were the recollections of the oldest members of the Jewish Community Liza Gemb, and Yuriy Kaminskiy, who suggested establishing a memorial complex of the evacuated during the Great Patriotic War. The specialists needed for the armament industry were also evacuated. The hard work of millions of people, who worked in inhuman conditions, was able to save and restore the industry. They did it in spite of the fact that it was a hardly possible goal to accomplish.

The words of the Director of the Research-scientific Institute Professor Asma Kalybekova were noted by everyone: "there is no future without past". The evacuation cannot be compared to any similar events in the human history because of the unique character of its meaning and amount of efforts it required. The history showed that evacuation turned out to be the most important battle of the Great Patriotic War, which was won by the Soviet people.

Bella Atran