Historians, politicians and scholars will mark Memory Day on June 28

A group of historians, politicians and scholars formed the committee for the organization of the Memory March dedicated to victims of events on June 28, 1940. The march will begin on Tuesday, June 28, at 10.30 AM, from Calea Iesilor and will head towards the Great National Assembly Square, where flowers will be laid at the memorial stone. Organizers estimate that about 500 people will attend the event. A Te Deum will be officiated at St. Andrew Church in Durlesti, Info-Prim Neo reports. Constantin Lazar, head of the Association of Romanian Citizens in Moldova and member of the organization committee, participated in a press conference on Monday, June 27. He said that his generation was the link between the people who lived the tragedy of June 28, 1940, and the new generation, who knew little about the mass deportations of their ancestors. Historian Ion Varta stressed that the events on June 28, 1940 mustn’t be approached separately from those of 1812, when Basarabia was transformed into a Russian province. They are linked as both are consequences of an imperial power. “Russia had no ethnic, juridical or linguistic grounds to annex this land. It had a single goal- the geopolitical one”, added Ion Varta. According to him, after these events, over 40,000 people were deported to Siberia. Even Soviet documents proved that over 200,000 people died because of famine in 1948. “Then, authorities took away the last grains from people’s houses. Still, after 20 years of independence, we cannot accept that the act on June 28 was an act of occupation”, said Varta. The National-Liberal Party leader, Vitalia Pavlicenco, mentioned that according to estimations, the overall damage done to the victims of the Soviet regime was about $27 billion. Moldova should demand this money from Russia, she claims. Vitalia Pavlicenco added that she would suggest authorities to organize a referendum to ask people if they agreed. “After the occupation on June 28, 1940, the consequences were disastrous for Basarabia and northern Bucovina. All the priests and intellectuals who didn’t seek refuge in Romania were exterminated”, said Gheorghe Vita, chairman of the Romanians’ Union in Basarabia. He added that people were offered Soviet citizenship without being asked. Gheorghe Vita considers June 28 a mourning day for Basarabia. On June 28, 1940, Russian troops occupied Basarabia as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Germany and Russia, signed on August 23, 1939. On June 24, 2010, the interim President of Moldova at that time, Mihai Ghimpu, decreed June 28 the Soviet Occupation Day. The decree caused a stir, including within the Alliance for European Integration. Less than a month later, on July 12, the Constitutional Court annulled the decree. The Court’s chairman, Dumitru Pulbere, explained that Mihai Ghimpu tried to give a juridical assessment of historical events.