However, the Crimean Germans did not escape the fate of the other Germans living in Russia.  They too were required after 1872 to send their sons to serve in the Russian army.  Many, many Germans began to migrate during this period to escape the manditory conscription of their precious sons into what was considered a “death sentence” to those entering the Russian Army.    Although the Crimea was later sheltered from much of the famine, pestilence, and war that the rest of the German communities in Bessarabia were subjected to, they also had their share of hardships.  The war front also moved into the Crimea, and the Germans remaining were subjected to the hardships of a “country invaded.”

The Crimean Germans were less fortunate than others in that they were deported enmass, primarily to Siberia, at the close of WWII as the Russian Government considered them “enemies of the state” and deported them for their believed aid to the enemy German troops.  There charges were in fact unsubstanciated, however, this did not stop the Russian Government from implementing deportation procedures against not only the Germans in the Crimea, but also the Tatar nationals who also resided there.  Many of the Crimean German men were sent to Siberian work camps from which few survived.  Their families were often sent to remote places far from these camps, such as villages in Kazakhstan, which lies to the west of the Volga River and borders the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea and extends to the Chinese  and Mongolian borders to the east, and the Irtysch River to the north. 

The fortunate ones who migrated prior to the deportation period followed much the same path to the US as their fellow Bessarabian immigrants, eventually departing from Europe from the port of Hamburg, Germany.  The Crimean Germans settled mainly in the midwest states of North and South Dakota.  Mercer County in North Dakota received many of these immigrants and the cities of Krem, Krontal, Mannhaven, Hazen, Beulah, and Zap were settled either primarily or partially with immigrants from the Crimea.  Other regions, of course, received Crimean immigrants also.

The following pages are dedicated to trying to trace the regions in the US, Canada, and Siberia to which the larger groups of immigrants migrated to, or were deported to.  Little information has been obtained about the deported families and their where-abouts.  New information will be added to these pages if and when it is received.

Much of the information on the following pages has been extracted from town jubilee books from the US, and is an ongoing project.

Updated 5/25/99