It was on June 15. 1940. that the Soviet Army swept across the Lithuanian borders and forced this peaceloving country under the Communist yoke. By June 17. both Estonia and Latvia were occupied. Mass deportations followed in which more than 50.000 people were sent to prison camps in eastern Russia. Since then. several waves of deportations and arrests occurred in these countries. The most serious took place in 1949 in an effort to break the resistance of Baltic farmers against forceful collectivization of their land. It was at this time than an estimated 10 percent of Lithuanias population was driven to Siberia.
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deportations