Young Kazakh Germans preserve Soviet-era memories in Astana

Yunna Kinereish, 22, stands in the House of Friendship in Astana, where she acts in a play about the deportation of her ancestors. She is one of 223,000 Kazakh Germans living in the Central Asian republic. Kinereish studies public relations and describes her dual identity. "I am German by ethnicity. But I also feel that I'm Kazakh, because I keep the traditions with my family, and I have this mentality," she said.

The history of her community dates back to the 18th century when Germans settled in the Russian Empire. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, leader Josef Stalin ordered the deportation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans from Russia and Ukraine to Siberia and Kazakhstan. More than a million people were moved. At least 200,000 died from expulsion, hunger, and forced labor. Kinereish's family was driven out of Kleinwärter, a settlement in Ukraine.

Kinereish documents these histories through film and stage. In 2025, she made a film about German women in ALZhIR, the Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland. The camp was part of the Soviet Gulag system established during the Great Terror of the 1930s. 18,000 women passed through ALZhIR, including 167 ethnic Germans. They were imprisoned because their husbands were convicted of treason or being enemies of the people.

The ALZhIR memorial sits just outside Astana, which became the capital in 1997. Visitors pass through the Arch of Grief, a steel structure, before entering the museum. The building contains personal items, models of quarters, and photographs of prisoners. One photo shows Gertrud Platais, a print worker from Lower Silesia. Her husband was arrested in 1938, and she was convicted as a relative of a traitor. She worked as an embroiderer in ALZhIR until 1946. Temperatures in the region reached 40 degrees Celsius in summer and minus 40 degrees in winter.

Platais was later banished to the Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, known as Karlag. She was not rehabilitated until 1956. Karlag was the largest camp system in the Soviet Union. It covered an area 22 times the size of New York City. Almost one million people passed through it between 1931 and 1959. Around 10,000 prisoners died between 1940 and 1950 from starvation, cold, and disease.

The Karlag museum is located in Karaganda, about 250 kilometers south of Astana. It occupies the former administration building of the camp system. German historians note that the museum reconstructs interrogation cells and plays melodramatic music. They describe the presentation as staged. Katherine M. Erdman, an anthropologist at Nazarbayev University, has researched the Gulag system for a decade. She finds that many locals show apathy or rejection when discussing the past.

"In many regions, the landscape has been shaped by forced labor," Erdman said. Her team uses drones and interviews to locate former camp sites. Factories and houses built with bricks from forced laborers still stand in some areas. Erdman shares findings with local administrations, but state funding for further research is lacking. Many Kazakhs want to show the international community that the country is dealing with its history, but interest remains low.

Kinereish continues her work to ensure the past is remembered. "My ancestors survived the Gulag system in Kazakhstan," she said. "So it's important to me that we don't forget our roots, and that what our forefathers experienced and suffered is passed on." The House of Friendship offers language courses and social work, financed primarily by the German government, while serving as a center for German culture in the city.