The MPs started today’s sitting with a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the first wave of deportations of June 13, 1941, IPN reports.

Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu said that the deportations are a national tragedy. Thousands of people were taken by force to Siberia and Kazakhstan, where they died in concentration camps or endured unimaginable sufferings, being separated from the dear ones forever.

“On this occasion, I want to urge you again, dear citizens, to speak about peace, to support how we can our Ukrainian neighbors who are going again through ordeals that we all believed belonged to the past. Not everyone learned the lessons of history, but our country and its people are for peace and justice and those sufferings of the victims of the communist totalitarian regime should never repeat,” stated Igor Grosu.

The first wave of Stalinist deportations in Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina of June 13, 1941 was followed by two more waves, in 1949 and 1951. According to historians, about 3,470 families out of the total of over 22,000 people were deported during one night in 1941.