Senior state officials, politicians, activists and families of deportees on July 6 laid flowers at the monument to the victims of Stalinist deportations located in the square of the Railway Terminal in Chisinau, commemorating thus the people who were affected by the Stalinist purges. Today it is 67 years of the second wave of deportations, which was the biggest one, when 35,700 people were deported, IPN reports.

Mayor General of Chisinau municipality Dorin Chirtoaca said that if Moldova faced again the influence of those who caused those deportations and the organized famine, at least those who suffered in that period would rise in revolt and would not allow the country to be occupied.

In the morning of July 6, Prime Minister Pavel Filip, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu, Cabinet members and MPs laid flowers at the monument “Train of Pain”. “It is out moral duty to commemorate the victims of the deportations. The date of July 6, 1949 was the apogee of the terror of deportations, when many Moldovans who represented the elite of our country in medicine, education and culture and wealthy people from villages were deported to Siberia. This day will remind us of those harsh lessons of history. From my viewpoint, the politicians must draw conclusions so that we have tolerance in society and do our best to prevent a rerun of those events,” stated Pavel Filip.

Valentina Sturza, who heads the Association of Former Deportees and Political Prisoners of Moldova, said the Soviet soldiers entered unexpectedly the homes of the most honest people and took them by freight trains to the deserts of Kazakhstan and to the icy Siberia. The next day, the men were separated from their families and taken to gulags where they were convicted to death by shooting or to 15-25 years in prison only because they were mayors, deputies, priests, teachers and hardworking people.

The number of those who went through the ordeal of deportations decreases every year. “Of the 94 792 people deported for forming Moldovan colonies in the Siberian woods and in the deserts of Kazakhstan, about whom Stalin was informed, only approximately 9,000 are still alive. This is less than 1% of those who were deported abroad for good. We leave, but history remains for our descendants,” stated Valentina Sturza.

Many of those who were deported never returned home.