The Ukrainians and Tatars, who had suffered persecution under Stalin, were likely motivated primarily by opposition to the Soviet government rather than ideological agreement with the SS.[346] The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was made an SS-Gruppenführer by Himmler in May 1943.[347] He subsequently used antisemitism and anti-Serb racism to recruit a Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the SS-Handschar.[348] The year-long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II resulted in volunteers for Latvian and Estonian Waffen-SS units.