Stalin promised there would be no collectivization in Latvia. This. however. was introduced after the war. in 1949. Latvians remember the first year of Soviet occupation with horror. because of constant Red terror and the first mass deportation carried out by the Moscow regime shortly before the German invasion. in June 1941. Even prior to this. however. thousands of Latvian patriots. army officers. state officials. and even President Ulmanis and members of his Cabinet. had been arrested and deported to Russia. On June 14. however. 15.000 Latvian citizensmen. women. and childrenwere rounded up at night by the secret policeloaded into cattle trucksand deported to slave labor in northeast Russia and Siberia. Thirtyfour thousand Latvians were either arrested. deported. or killed during that year of Soviet occupationand the same fate befell thousands of Estonians and Lithuanians. On June 22. 1941. the GermanRussian War broke outbut though the Baltic people thought at first the Germans were their liberators when they swept in 10 days later into Rigatheir hope was shortlived. The Nazis very quickly suppressed attempts of the Baltic states to regain their independence and it became clear these countries could expect no more freedom and independence from them than they had gotten from the Communists. Instead they arrested. killed and deported thousands of Latvian citizens to forced labor in Germany. and exterminated the Jews as far as they were able. All the Baltic people felt their only hope was migration to the Western democracies. About 125.000 left their homeland for Western Europe. after the German forces had withdrawn from the East.
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deported deportation