ARCHIVE Chronicle // Story of more than 1,000 Bessarabians saved from exile

The National Archives Agency, in the context of commemorating the victims of Stalinist deportations, has presented to the public photographs and archival documents that shed light on a lesser-known aspect of the tragedy of June 1941: the story of those who managed to avoid deportation.

According to archival documents, the mass deportation operation carried out during the night of June 12–13, 1941, initially targeted a larger number of people than those who were ultimately forcibly displaced. As many as 18,530 people were deported from the Moldovan Soviet Republic and 1,183 individuals managed to escape the fate that awaited them.

Data presented by the National Archives Agency show that three people hid from the Soviet authorities, 133 were not arrested for health reasons, 318 changed their residence on the eve of the operation, and 829 were removed from the lists after the accusations brought against them were deemed insufficiently supported by evidence.

The institution recalls that the June 1941 deportations were part of a broad repressive operation organized by the Soviet authorities in the territories occupied as a result of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact. The operation took place just a few days before the outbreak of the German–Soviet war and targeted persons considered “anti-Soviet elements.”

According to Soviet documents, more than 32,000 people from Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Herța region were to be deported or arrested. Heads of households were sent to GULAG camps, while their family members were to be deported to so-called “special settlements” in the remote regions of the Soviet Union.

According to historians, the deportations of June 12–13, 1941 represent one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of Bessarabia, with thousands of families being separated and condemned to years of suffering in Siberia and Kazakhstan.