On the night of July 6, 64 years ago, the second wave of deportations staged by the Stalinist regime began in Bessarabia. According to the head of the Association of Former Deportees and Political Detainees Valentina Sturza, the Stalinist authorities deported over 35,000 Moldovans to Siberia.  850 deportees are still alive.

“This day is commemorated every year. We come together and remember what we had gone through. It is a painful day for us, but it conveys a message – that the young generation should not repeat our fate. The young people do not know what Communist genocide is and should never know,” Valentina Sturza stated for IPN.

On the occasion of this event, former deportees and political prisoners will receive by a lump sum of 500 lei in assistance from the authorities. A memorial to victims of the Soviet occupational regime will be unveiled in Ciuciuleni village of Hancesti district. The sculpture has the form of a memorial complex consisting of a concrete cross at the foundation, a marble stele and a natural bell that will ring at commemoration events.

The monument to victims of the Stalinist repression in the square of the Railway Terminal in Chisinau was to be unveiled also today. But the event was postponed owing to problems related to the assembling of the memorial.

The second wave of deportations of July 6, 1949 is considered the greatest operation for deporting Bessarabians, known as the IUG operation.