The World Jewish Congress here today announced it is seeking witnesses against Nazis responsible for the massacre of thousands of Jews in the Crimea during 1941 and 1942. Among the victims was a community of Caucasian Mountain Jews known as Tati which in the pre-World-War-II period, had been resettled in the Crimea with the help of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint).
The Nazi massacres occurred mainly in Feodosia in November or December of 1941, and in March 1942, in the district of Eupatoria. Other murders took place in the village of lkor, the collective village about two to three miles from the town of Porfiriewka, and in the village of Kurulukonogos, near Eupatoria.
The Tati got their name because they spoke Judeo-Tati, an. Iranian dialect modified by Semitic and Turkish influences. In 1926, the mountain Jews numbered 25,866. A number of them was resettled in the Crimea in agricultural colonies in the process of resettlement of Soviet Jewry on land between the two world wars. Anyone who witnessed the killings of the Tati and other Crimean Jews, or can offer any pertinent information, is requested to get in touch with the World Jewish Congress headquarters in New York.
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