She wants to keep history alive.
asserted
She → want → history
Yunna Kinereish, 22, is studying public relations in Kazakhstan's modern capital, Astana.
asserted
Kinereish → study → capital
She describes herself as a Kazakh German.
asserted
She → describe → German
But I also feel that I'm Kazakh, because I keep the traditions with my family, and I have this mentality," she told DW.
asserted
she → feel → DW
Kinereish, who belongs to the Wiedergeburt (Revival) Association of Germans in Kazakhstan, is one of 223,000 Kazakh Germans living in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan today.
asserted
who → belong → Kazakhstan
Kinereish recently acted in a play at the association's youth theater that told the fate of her Russian German forebears.
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that → act → forebears
From the 18th century onward, Germans were incentivized to leave Germany and settle in the Russian empire, including in Ukraine's Black Sea region.
But after the armies of Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Soviet dictator Josef Stalinstarted deporting hundreds of thousands of Germans living in Russia and Ukraine to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
asserted
Stalinstarted → incentivize → Siberia
Collective punishment
Innocent people who had nothing to do with Nazi Germany's invasion and atrocities were collectively held responsible by the Soviet power and denounced as spies and collaborators.
asserted
who → have → spies
There were more than a million deportees, of whom at least 200,000 died as a result of expulsion, hunger, and forced labor.
asserted
200,000 → be → expulsion
They were driven out of the Ukrainian village Kleinwärter, a settlement of ethnic Germans in Ukraine.
asserted
They → drive → Ukraine
Yunna Kinereish says she was very moved by the personal stories she and her friends had brought to the stage at the House of Friendship, where the association has its office.
asserted
association → say → office
"It's not easy for me, because it all touches my heart very deeply.
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it → touch → heart
I actually feel like crying.
asserted
I → feel → ?
But when I'm on stage ..., I have to be strong."
asserted
I → have → stage
The modern-looking House of Friendship in the capital Astana is the center for German culture in the city.
asserted
House → look → city
Financed primarily by the German government, it offers language courses, engages in social work and fosters a culture of remembrance, focusing on the themes of deportation and repression under the Soviet regime.
asserted
it → finance → regime
Yunna Kinereish doesn't only present the history of her people on stage: She is also documenting it on film.
asserted
She → present → film
In 2025, she made a film about German women incarcerated in ALZhIR (Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland), among the most infamous in the Soviet Gulag system.
asserted
she → make → system
During Stalin's brutal campaign of political repression and state-sponsored terror in the 1930s, a period known as the Great Terror, the Soviet Union established its biggest camp system in Kazakhstan.
asserted
Union → sponsor → Kazakhstan
18,000 women passed through the ALZhIR camp alone.
asserted
women → pass → camp
These women were imprisoned there only because their husbands had been convicted of being traitors or enemies of the people.
asserted
husbands → imprison → people
Among them were 167 ethnic German women, whose stories are told in the film.
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stories → tell → film
The memorial for the ALZhIR women's camp is located just outside the gates of Astana, which only became the capital in 1997.
asserted
which → locate → 1997
Astana's roads are permanently clogged with traffic.
asserted
roads → clog → traffic
The city is growing, with new buildings shooting up all along the outskirts of the city.
asserted
buildings → grow → city
Before entering the actual ALZhIR museum, the visitor passes through the Arch of Grief, a huge steel construction that commemorates the suffering and forced labor the women endured.
asserted
women → enter → suffering
The museum itself contains personal items that belonged to the female prisoners, models of their primitive quarters, original documents and photographs.
asserted
that → contain → quarters
One of the photos is of Gertrud Platais, a woman with German roots who spent years incarcerated in ALZhIR.
asserted
who → spend → ALZhIR
She married Karl Eduard Platais and became a Soviet citizen.
asserted
She → marry → Platais
In 1938, during the Great Terror, her husband was arrested.
asserted
husband → arrest → Terror
Gertrud was convicted, too as a "relative of a traitor to the homeland."
asserted
Gertrud → convict → homeland
She was transferred to ALZhIR, in a region where temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer and minus 40 degreees Celsius in winter.
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temperatures → transfer → winter
Here, she was forced to work as an embroiderer until 1946.
asserted
she → force → 1946
After this, she was banished for life to the huge Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, known as Karlag.
asserted
she → banish → Karlag
Gertrud Platais wasn't rehabilitated until 1956.
asserted
Platais → rehabilitate → 1956
Hers is just one story documenting the terror of the Soviet system on Kazakh soil.
asserted
Hers → document → soil
Karlag was by far the biggest camp system and its complex covered an area about 22 times the size of New York City.
asserted
complex → cover → City
Almost one million people passed through it between 1931 and 1959.
asserted
people → pass → 1931
Around 10,000 prisoners are believed to have died here between 1940 and 1950 alone: of starvation, cold, sickness, and the effects of forced labor.
asserted
prisoners → believe → labor
The museum sits in the middle of the Kazakh steppe, near the city of Karaganda, about 250 kilometers south of Astana.
asserted
museum → sit → Astana
…and 24 more, not listed.
The Aporia
