The exhibition titled “Bessarabians in the Gulag”, in memory of the victims of the second wave of Stalinist deportations from Bessarabia, which is presented in the central square of Chisinau, can be visited until July 30. The two train wagons that are identical to those used by the Soviets in the deportation process remained in the Great National Assembly Square. The Government said that it decided to extend the exhibition following multiple requests from citizens, IPN reports.

In the two wagons, there were exhibited things used by the victims of deportations. Each visitor can see and feel the hotness in which the people had been transported during three weeks, which was then replaced by Siberia’s coldness. Documentaries about this tragedy are screened there, while members of families deported to Siberia and Mongolia tell how they survived.

The thematic exhibition was mounted with the support of Moldova’s Railways that provided and fixed the two metal wagons, of the National Achieves Agency, of the National Museum of History and the National Library of the Republic of Moldova.

On the night of July 6, 1949, the Soviet regime deported thousands of Bessarabian peasants to forced labor camps in Siberia, this being the largest wave of deportations of the three staged in total. A number of 11,281 families were deported in wagons similar to those placed in the central square of Chisinau.