Moldovan parliament observes minute of silence for victims of Stalin-era deportations: Moldpres

This article is published under the cooperation agreement between Armenpress and Moldpres.

At the initiative of Moldovan Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu, lawmakers observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of Stalin-era deportations, Moldpres reported.

The initiative was held to mark the 85th anniversary of the first deportation operation from Bessarabia.

The speaker recalled that on the night of June 12-13, 1941, Soviet authorities launched the first deportation operation, during which more than 30,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes and transported in freight wagons under inhumane conditions to various remote regions.

“The tragedy of the deportations is the tragedy of our people, and we are obliged to keep the memory of these individuals alive and pass on to future generations the truth about the crimes of the totalitarian regime,” Grosu said.

He also announced that at 09:00 on June 12, a thematic exhibition titled “State Terror in Soviet Moldova: Scale, Victims and Perpetrators” would open in Great National Assembly Square. The exhibition has been organized by the Ministry of Culture.

It was also announced that a similar exhibition dedicated to the memory of the victims of Stalin-era deportations would be opened in Bălți.

According to Moldpres, 18,392 people were affected by the mass deportation operation carried out in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic on the night of June 12-13, 1941. The operation formed part of a broader campaign to “cleanse” territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

The mass deportation carried out between July 6 and July 9, 1949, was the largest such operation on the territory of present-day Moldova. It affected more than 11,000 families, totaling 35,796 people, including 11,889 children, 14,033 women, and 9,864 men.