Tears and sorrow 60 years after deportations of 1949

Dozens of elderly persons started the day with sad memories from their childhood. After laying flowers to the monument to Ruler Stephan the Great and Holy in central Chisinau, they marched on the boulevard up to the square of the Railway Terminal, where there was laid the foundation stone of the future monument to deportees. They enclosed it with barbed wire as a sign of the suffering that they went through together with their families more than half a century ago, lit candles and kept silent for a moment in memory of those that died during those hard times. A group of priests held a commemoration service. On July 6, it is 60 years of the Stalinist repressions of 1949. Valentina Sturza, president of the Association of Former Deportees and Political Prisoners of Moldova, said at the rally that during many years the deportees had sustained pain and humiliation and had been slaves. “However, we are still able to protest against the Communists – the monster with three heads,” she said. “We asked the Government to build a monument here, instead of this stone, as they did for others. We asked that the days of June 28 and July 6 be declared days of national mourning. We repeatedly asked that the property of our parents be returned to us. They told us they do not have money. Where should they take money from if they stole it?” Valentina Sturza said. Eugenia Ciuntu was 23 when she and her parents were forced to leave for Siberia. “They took those that were hard-working and good people. They did not tell us why,” the old woman has told Info-Prim Neo, sad about her past, but glad that her children born in Siberia now take care of her. “We were probably the worst persons, but they made us dig trenches together with soldiers for many months. I and my children born there still suffer. I thought it will be only me to sustain this pain, while my children and grandchildren will be free from the Communist regime. But it is not so,” Eugenia Ciuntu said. The event was also attended by election contenders - members of Opposition parties. The vice president of the Liberal Party Dorin Chirtoaca promised two years ago, when he became the Mayor of Chisinau, that a monument will exist in the square of the Railway Terminal when it will be 60 years of the deportations. “The City Hall is ready to build this monument. Unfortunately, the Chisinau Municipal Council has not yet approved the disbursement of funds for this,” he stated for Info-Prim Neo. The contest to select the design of the monument was held, while the money needed to build it had been allocated in October 2008, Dorin Chirtoaca said. “I am also a member of a family of deportees. My grandparents had been deported together with my father. We must be near this people that were the elite of the society, but humiliated by the Communist regime in 19 41 and 1949. We have today a formal law that is put in the responsibility of the mayors offices. Not the mayors offices, but the state, the Communist regime deported the people,” he added. Municipal councilor Oleg Cernei, candidate on the list of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, admitted that not much is done for these people though political leaders have come to commemorate this day together with them for 19 years. “We must shift from words to deeds and build this monument until next year,” he said. Mihai Godea, first vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, said that it is regretful that justice has not been done to those that were deported on the Black Night of St John’s Day, as it was called then. “I think the society has a moral responsibility towards them,” Godea said, adding that the central authorities are obliged to publicly condemn the deportations as an instrument of genocide against the own people and earmark money in the budget for restoring the goods confiscated from the deportees. No representative of the ruling party took part in the event.