The Second Wave of the Uzbek Diaspora: World War II and Post-War Emigration (1940–1960)

The first wave of Uzbek and Turkestani emigration fell in 1917–1934 — the Bolshevik takeover, the Basmachi movement and collectivization. The second wave is tied to the Second World War and the years just after it (roughly 1940–1960). The following sets out this period on a facts-only basis, without any justification or opinion.

World War II and prisoners of war

During the war, many Central Asians — including Uzbek Red Army soldiers — were captured by Germany. In December 1941, Nazi Germany ordered the creation of a military formation from Soviet prisoners of war — Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Karakalpaks and Tajiks — called the Turkestan Legion (Turkestanische Legion). It was not an independence army but a unit within the Wehrmacht. The Legion was mobilized in May 1942, grew to about 16 battalions (~16,000 soldiers) by 1943, and was used on the Western Front and in the Balkans.

Conditions in captivity were catastrophic: for example, in autumn 1941 a camp near Częstochowa (Poland) held about 32,000 “Turkestanis,” of whom about 30,000 died over the winter from hunger, typhus and wounds. Many prisoners enlisted in the Legion under this threat of death. After the war a large share of Legion members were captured by the Allies and forcibly repatriated to the USSR, where they faced repression; only a portion refused repatriation and remained in the West as “displaced persons” (DPs).

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Displaced persons and migration to the US

After the war the US admitted European displaced persons under two laws: the Displaced Persons Act of 25 June 1948 (over 400,000 admitted by the end of 1952, more than 70% of them from Eastern Europe and the USSR) and the Refugee Relief Act of 7 August 1953 (214,000 people). Turkestani and Uzbek émigrés also began arriving from Europe in this period. Sources do not give a separate count, but the earliest families settled from the late 1950s, mainly around New York.

The community in the US

On 13 December 1958 the Turkistanian American Association (the name is spelled variously in sources) was founded in Philadelphia and recorded in New York in 1961; it is a cultural body dedicated to preserving national traditions and is still active (New Jersey). The earliest Uzbek families settled around New York from the late 1950s, and from the mid-1960s mainly arrived from Turkey. The largest growth of the Uzbek community in the US came later — with the waves after the 1980s.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia

A significant part of the Uzbek-Turkestani émigrés settled in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Migration to Saudi Arabia had begun earlier (through the Hajj and flight from the Russian Empire) and continued through the mid-century; its centers were Mecca, Medina, Jeddah and Taif. Present-day estimates put the number of people of Uzbek origin in Saudi Arabia at about 1 million (an estimate covering several waves). The Uzbek diaspora in Turkey is estimated at about 70,000; after 1945 Turkey admitted refugees of Turkic origin and served as a transit hub for onward migration to the US.

Émigré figures

One notable figure of this period was Baymirza Hayit (1917, Namangan – 2006, Cologne). An Uzbek historian taken prisoner in the war, he went on to write about 15 books on the history of Turkestan in West Germany; his works were banned in the USSR. Mustafa Chokay (1890–1941) belongs more to the first wave — he died before the Legion was formed and had refused an offer to lead it.

On the numbers

Hard population figures for this mid-century diaspora are scarce and largely estimated. The early Turkestani community in the US was small (a few thousand people); the figures for Saudi Arabia and Turkey (~1 million, ~70,000) are estimates covering several waves. Any number should be taken as an estimate, not a precise count.

Note

The above is a neutral account of verified historical facts. The Turkestan Legion is described here plainly as a unit formed by Nazi Germany from prisoners of war; the text justifies no political movement and covers only the history of migration.