President Maia Sandu delivers a commemorative message marking the victims of Stalinist deportations, 85 years after the first wave began on the night of 12–13 June 1941, one of the most tragic events in the history of the Republic of Moldova.
“Today, we bow in respect before those who suffered at that time and before their strength to preserve their dignity, faith, and hope. In their memory, we have a duty to defend the values for which these people paid a tremendous price: freedom, identity, and the right to live without fear. A nation that knows its history becomes stronger and harder to divide. Therefore, the commemoration of the deportations concerns both the past and the democratic future we are building together,” the President stated.
Maia Sandu invites citizens to visit the wagon exhibition titled “State Terror in Soviet Moldova: Scale, Victims and Perpetrators,” open from 12 June to 6 July in the Great National Assembly Square in Chișinău and in the North Railway Station Square in Bălți.
The first wave of Stalinist deportations takes place on the night of 12–13 June 1941, when tens of thousands of people from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina are loaded into freight trains and forcibly deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.