President Maia Sandu delivered a poignant message today, commemorating the victims of the largest Stalinist deportation wave in Bessarabia. The head of state emphasized that the Republic of Moldova will continue to assist our neighbors who are fleeing from the horrors of war.
“In the night between June 12 and 13, 1941, over 6,000 Moldovan families experienced the greatest nightmare of their lives. In total, approximately 20,000 people – priests, mayors, teachers, entrepreneurs from villages and towns – were forcibly taken at gunpoint and transported in cattle cars to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Wives and children were separated from their husbands and fathers, water was scarce, and they were often given only salted fish to eat. The most educated individuals, the intellectual elite of our country, our grandparents filled with compassion, courage, and love for our people, overnight became enemies of the state,” stated Maia Sandu.
President Sandu underlined that the Stalinist regime feared the industrious people who defended the values of their nation, and it trampled upon the basic rights and human dignity.
“It is a wound in our nation that is difficult to heal. The past, where our grandparents or parents were sent to forced labor or killed for who they were, and not for committing any crime, still pains us today. The only way to honor their memory is to vehemently oppose such crimes against freedom and the right to life. Until recently, we believed that these tragedies belonged to the past. We all thought that we would not allow history to repeat itself and entire families to be killed or deported from their own homes. However, for over a year now, such crimes have been taking place in Ukraine, and the Kremlin regime has attacked a free nation simply because it wants to determine its own destiny. The Republic of Moldova will continue to assist our neighbors who are fleeing from the ravages of war. We will continue to stand in solidarity with Ukraine because we have inherited this lesson from our grandparents – faith, compassion, and love for freedom are our core values through which we will find ourselves together, in the not too distant future, within the family of civilized European nations, in the European Union,” she added.
The first wave of deportations occurred on the night of June 12 to 13, 1941.