Speech #890011769

But despite the destruction of Nazi Germany. the Baltic States still remain under tight Soviet control today. For those of us who have never had to live under occupation by a totalitarian power. it is difficult to comprehend fully the enormity of the depredations suffered by the people of Lithuania in that most catastrophic period beginning in 1940. The flights of families before the Communist and Nazi invading armies. the retributions and the vengeance of oppressors against patriotic resistance. the losses under air attack. the mass deportations. the mass executions. the sacrifices of Lithuanian freedom fighters struggling against impossible oddsthese and a thousand cruel injustices were all heaped upon one small people. Just think. Mr. Speaker. what some of these statistics mean in a little country of only about 3 million inhabitants: Some 45.000 Lithuanians deported. many of them never to be heard of again. during the initial period of Soviet rule in Lithuania in 1940 and 1941. About 200.000 including almost the entire Jewish population of Lithuania. exterminated during the period of Nazi occupation from June 1941 through July About 80.000 Lithuanians fleeing to Western zones of Germany as the advancing Soviet armies again approached Lithuania in July of 1944. Some 60.000 Lithuanians found by the Soviets in Eastern Germany and sent to Siberia. About 1.700 Lithuanians executed by the Communists following mass trials. many because of their activity in the Lithuanian underground and their opposition to Soviet rule. Nearly 145.000 Lithuanians deported by the Communists in 1945 and 1946. Nearly 12.000 resistance fighters killed. according to the statement in February 1949 of a Communist official in Lithuania. who admitted that the struggle against Lithuanian resistance was still continuing. About 60.000 Lithuanians deported in March 1949 following passive resistance by the farm population to the collectivization of agriculture. These figures do not of course begin to tell the whole story. but they do. I believe. make one thing painfully clear: After these and other population shifts and mass killings. there can hardly be an adult Lithuanian who has not felt the Nazi- or Sovietcaused loss of loved ones. through separation or death.