On October 15, 2019 a presentation of the book “One hundred and one” was held at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Netherlands. The novel was written by Anvar Irgashev, author from Uzbekistan, and Yulia Medvedovskaya, a Russian writer and his co-author.
The Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Belgium, the Youth Union of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Uzbekistan Film Holding take active part in this event.
“One hundred and one” was based on recently obtained documentary data about heroic and tragic destiny of one hundred and one Uzbek soldiers during The Great Patriotic War. They have courageously and praiseworthy got to fight in the Amersfoort concentration camp, and have died, without knowing that by their deed they destroyed Hitler’s cunning plan and prevented the Nazis’ attempts from changing the march of history.
For years it was believed that one hundred and one Uzbek soldiers were brought by German Nazis to the Amersfoort concentration camp to show the Dutch people whom the German army was fighting against. And whom are those Red Army’s soldiers frightening all Europeans from the Wehrmacht’s newspaper articles!
New data was received in 2017-2018 thanks to the unique research of the authors Anvar Irgashev and Yulia Medvedovskaya and the Dutch journalist Remco Reiding.
The novel “One hundred and one” is based on documentary facts using elements of art fiction.
As it turned out, the Uzbek soldiers were the victims of the fascist Germany “propaganda machine” and were specially selected for a particularly important and secret action. Adolf Hitler personally ordered the Reich Chancellor Goebbels and the Reichsfuhrer Himmler made a propaganda film about the Red Army soldiers, where they had to look stripped of human dignity, weak and primitive being. And all of these just to raise the German soldiers’ broken spirit before one of the most important battles of the Great Patriotic War – the battle for Moscow!
Hitler declared such ideological film as a priority. It was expected to release in the beginning of November 1941, involving the best Reich filmmakers. And the material for this film had to be prepared in the Amersfoort concentration camp, the prisoners of which were one hundred and one Uzbek.
It seemed that Goebbels and Himmler were ready to report to the Fuhrer on the successful operation, but they made a mistake! Heroism, firmness and national culture, shown by Uzbek prisoners in the Amersfoort concentration camp, did not allow Hitler’s plans to be implemented. They were only one hundred and one! But they were real soldiers!
Hitler’s soldiers haven’t received the ideological support, and their broken spirit wasn’t raised before the battle for Moscow! They have not just lost the battle, but also more than half a million soldiers that were injured and died.
On April 9, 1942 Uzbek heroes were executed by shooting in a forest near the Amersfoort concentration camp. It was a top secret execution, and only concentration camp officers participated in it. Uzbek heroes went to execution with their heads held high, with an unbroken spirit, singing a song about the Motherland.
The collective deed of one hundred and one Uzbek heroes, who made an invaluable contribution to the victory of Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War will be remembered forever by grateful people all over the world!
