The 74th anniversary of the second wave of deportations is celebrated today, July 6. The central and local public authorities rendered homage to the victims of the Stalinist regime. President Maia Sandu said that during one day alone, our parents and grandparents were sent to Siberia to die, being transported by over 1,500 cattle wagons. Last year, the National Archive Agency for the first time published the list of persons who were deported during July 6-9, 1949, IPN reports.
“During many years, we had been banned from talking about the terror experienced by Moldova. We were forced to grieve in secret. Today we can do it openly. Today we have the duty to do it. Today we can say how much we grieve for each lost child or parent. Each of us has someone who was deported in the family. We should listen to the accounts of those who are still among us, tell about them and remember what they said and pass on their stories. We must talk about the three large waves of deportations, of June 1941, July 1949, and April 1951,” stated President Sandu.
The official noted that the Soviet regime’s deportations were aimed at clearing Moldova of intellectuals, of persons with critical thinking, of hardworking people from villages who refused to join the kolkhozes and of anyone who disagreed with the regime. This way they wanted to build totalitarianism without having any opposition or obstacle.
Angela Kutasevich, deputy mayor of Chisinau, said that July 6, 1949 is a black page in Moldova’s history, but also in the local history, of Chisinau. “25,000 personalities, hardworking people were deported by terror wagons to “Icy Siberia” for the simple reason that they had a home, knew how to educate their children with dignity, took their children to school, treated or offered expert medical assistance, promoted the Christian values in churches or were simply humans. Those 25,000 inhabitants of Chisinau could have contributed to the prosperity of Chisinau and the whole country. But that regime considered history must be changed. Three waves of deportations profoundly marked our history, the history of our development. That’s why each of us has the moral obligation to keep alive the memory of those who suffered for us to be here today and to remember them,” stated the deputy mayor.
Minister of Culture Sergiu Prodan said that 74 years have passed since that black day when tens of thousands of citizens were woken up at night with the back of the rife and taken thousands of kilometers away by wagons. Many of them left for good and weren’t told why they were deported. “This tragedy experienced by our people is actually a gene that should represent us from now on. This memory, this history should form part of our blood and bones. If we do not assume this history and this memory, the sufferings of our ancestors, our parents were in vain. Ignoring that history would be the biggest crime now,” noted the minister.
According to Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu, even if the environment to which those people were deported was noxious, they taught a lesson of domestic management there too. Our people even civilized those locals as they didn’t parasitize, but built houses. The people who managed to return home resisted, kept the memory alive and passed it on to children. They kept the faith that forms part of our DNA.
A mobile museum in honor of the deportees will be present in the central square of Chisinau today and during the next few days.
