Latvia. and Estonia controlled a major portion of the Baltic Sea. a vital trade and shipping route the Russians felt they must have. How to gain control of these countries. each of which had a treaty of friendship and guarantee of sovereignty with Russia. was an easily solved problem for the Kremlin. Quickly overpowering each weakened government. the Russians established their militia in each country and began a brutal campaign of mass deportations. On June 14. 1941. the wave of deportations reached its peak. continuing in Lithuania for five more nights. Fifteen thousand Latvian men. women. and children were rounded up by Soviet secret police during a single night and transported in cattle cars to the slave labor camps of Siberia. Thousands of Lithuanians and Estonians were similarly rounded up and deported under equally inhuman conditions. Today very little is known of the fate of these innocent and helpless souls whose only crime was their opposition to Communism. Many have undoubtedly died. while others still suffer under cruel Communist control clinging to the hope for eventual freedom. National independence was no more in the Baltic countriesit died through Russian domination. However. the primary goal of the mass deportationsthe physical and spiritual destruction of these three small nationswas never realized. In this respect Soviet Russia failed. for the people of Lithuania. Latvia. and Estonia have never lost their identity and their love of liberty which live on in the hearts and minds of the Baltic peoples.
Keywords matched
deported deportations deportationsthe