Latvia. and Lithuania were forcibly occupied and illegally annexed by the U.S.S.R. Any claims by the U.S.S.R. that the elections conducted by them in July 1940 were free and voluntary or that the resolutions adopted by the resulting parliaments petitioning for recognition as a Soviet Republic were legal are false and without foundation in fact. All the treacherous Soviet measures were supported by mass deportations and terror. It is estimated that during this early occupation about 45.000 Lithuanians were lost in a purging of what the Soviets called hostile. criminal. and socially dangerous elements. About 30.000 of these were members of the intelligentsia deported to Siberia. Some 5.000 political prisoners were executedmost of these when the Russians hastily retreated under Nazi advances. The Nazis. in their turn. annihilated other segments of the population.
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deported deportations