Saide Arifova (1916 – 9 September 2007) was a Crimean Tatar woman from

Bakhchisarai Bakhchysarai ( crh, Bağçasaray, italic=yes; russian: Бахчисара́й; ua, Бахчисара́й; tr, Bahçesaray) is a town in Crimea, a territory recognized by a majority of countries as part of Ukraine and annexed by Russia as the Re ...

, Crimea, who saved at least 74 Jewish children from the Nazis and the NKVD during World War II.

Life

During the Nazi occupation of Crimea she worked as a kindergarten director and managed to forge documents, altering the Jewish children's recorded ethnicity to Crimean Tatar, teaching them to speak Crimean Tatar and to adopt Crimean Tatar customs. She also managed to conceal children from

Kerch Kerch ( uk, Керч; russian: Керчь, ; Old East Slavic: Кърчевъ; Ancient Greek: , ''Pantikápaion''; Medieval Greek: ''Bosporos''; crh, , ; tr, Kerç) is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of ...

orphanage, who were due to be sent to Germany for medical experiments. The Nazis suspected she was involved in their concealment and tortured her, but she did not disclose any information. Despite resisting the Nazis and becoming a victim of the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...

herself, she still was deported to Uzbek SSR during

Sürgün Sürgün or verb form sürmek (to displace) was a practice within the Ottoman Empire that entailed the movement of a large group of people from one region to another, often a form of forced migration imposed by state policy or international author ...

, as the Crimean Tatars were considered collectively guilty of collaboration. She did manage to convince the NKVD that the children were Jewish, not Crimean Tatar, and save them from exile. Only after Perestroika did she return to Crimea where she died in 2007. Multiple sources claim she was declared

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to s ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

, but she is not listed as a person awarded the title anywhere in their database. She is the main protagonist in the 2017 Ukrainian film, Another's Prayer, directed by

Akhtem Seitablaiev Akhtem Shevketovych Seitablayev (, ; born 11 December 1972) is a Ukrainian actor, screenwriter and film director of the Crimean Tatars origyn. He is the director of several high-profile films, including '' Haytarma'' in 2013 and '' Another's Praye ...

, a Crimean Tatar film director who was born in exile. The movie was supposed to be filmed in Crimea, but after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014 it was instead filmed in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

and mainland Ukraine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arifova, Saide 1916 births 2007 deaths Crimean Tatar people Soviet women in World War II People from Bakhchysarai Raion