RUSSIAN CRIMES Russian Crimes against the Baltic States Russia annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the beginning of WWII and subjected them to her well-known barbarism. More than 300,000 citizens of Estonia, almost a third of the population at the time, were affected by deportations, arrests, execution and other acts of repression. As a result of the Soviet takeover, Estonia permanently lost at least 200,000 people or 20% of its population,due to repression, exodus and war. In 1941, after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, destruction battalions were formed in the western regions of the Soviet Union to implement Stalin’s Scorched Earth Policy. In Estonia, they killed thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children, while burning down dozens of villages, schools and public buildings. A school boy,Tullio Lindsaar, had all hands bones broken and was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Mauricius Parts, the son of the Estonian War of Independence veteran Karl Parts, was doused in acid! In August 1941, all of the residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year-old child and a six-day-old infant. In Latvia, over 200,000 people suffered from Soviet repression, of which some 60% were deported to the Soviet Gulags in Siberia and the Far East. The Soviet regime forced more than 260,000 Latvians to flee the country. As for Lithuania, it was invaded by the Red Army on June 15, 1940, and was annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Union on August 3, 1940. The Soviet annexation resulted in mass terror, and the destruction of civil liberties, the economic system and Lithuanian culture. During 1940-1941, thousands of Lithuanians were arrested and hundreds of political prisoners were executed arbitrarily. More than 17,000 Lithuanians were deported to Siberia in June 1941. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Lithuania was occupied by Germany for a little over three years. In 1944, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania resumed following the retreat of the German army. Following World War II, Stalin executed thousands of resistance fighters and civilians accused of aiding them. Some 300,000 Lithuanians were deported or sentenced to prison camps on political grounds. It is estimated that Lithuania lost almost 780,000 citizens as a result of Soviet occupation.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:00:39 +0000
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