Today 65 years after... After the Nazi German occupation from 1941 to 1944/45, the USSR reoccupied Latvia and applied harsh measures to punish the people for resisting Soviet occupation. The Mass Deportation of 25 March 1949 This deportation of more than 42,000 people was carried out to end the resistance to collectivisation of the farms and at the same time to get rid of the supporters of national partisans. This deportation was mainly directed against the farming population and entire families were sent to forced settlement areas for life. After Stalins death, many were eventually allowed to return, but they could not resume their previous lives and were treated as unreliables. The deportation began in the night of 24 March. At night, people were arrested at home, during the day at their places of employment. Schoolchildren were sometimes taken to the trains directly from school. Between 25 March and 28 March 42,133 people, or more than 2% of the pre-war population of Latvia, were deported from Latvia to places of special settlement (mainly in the districts of Krasnoyarsk, Amur, Irkustsk, Omsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk). Among these were more than 10,990 children and youths under 16. Women and children under 16 constituted 73% of the deportees. Altogether 30,620 families and 94,799 people were deported from the three Baltic States.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 06:28:18 +0000
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