News

The 25th of March – launch day of the 1949 March mass deportations - was commemorated yesterday in Georgia. During the operation with the codename “Priboi” ("Coastal Surf"), 95 thousand Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were deported to Siberia in couple days.   The Mass was held at St. Peter and Paul Church in a memory of victims of the deportations. Later the members of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian communities in Georgia gathered together at Vilnius Square in Tbilisi in order to lit up the candles.  

H.E. Jonas Paslauskas, Ambassador of Lithuania to Georgia, called the participants of the event for a moment of silence in the memory of those who had perished.

"Today we are remembering those who were forcefully deported to Siberia in a short period of time during the largest operation of deportations. Majority of them were women and children - they absolutely could not be a threat to the occupation regime. We want the young generation to remember their history, because only then it is possible to create a future" – said Ambassador J.Paslauskas.

Soviet mass deportations from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are among the most disheartening events in the history of the Baltic States. During Stalin’s rule, more than 220 000 people were deported to Siberia (not including political prisoners in GULAG camps, which numbers is even greater).