Soviet authorities loading Chechens and Ingush onto trains for deportation, likely taken in February 1944. Source: Wikipedia. Fair use.
In February-March 1944, fires burned in Grozny and other settlements of the former Chechen-Ingush autonomous republic — fires made of books printed in Chechen and Ingush. The readers of these books — some 500,000 Chechens and Ingush people — were deported to Central Asia as part of Soviet security forces’ so-called “Operation Lentil”, which began before dawn on 23 February. Over several days, thousands of people were crammed into livestock carriages and transported thousands of kilometres by rail to the Soviet East.
