Then they called these Communist Parliaments into session to approve resolutions calling for the incorporation of Estonia. Latvia. and Lithuania into Soviet Union. In June 1941. the Soviets sought to consolidate their power by instituting massive deportations to labor camps in Siberia. Beginning on the night of June 13. 1941. tens of thousands of Estonians. Latvians. and Lithuanians. were torn from their homes. herded together in cattle cars. and shipped to the Soviet Far East. Thousands died. These deportations were a central feature of a deliberate attempt to destroy the Baltic States and the national consciousness of these Baltic peoples. The brief occupation of the Baltic area by the Nazis later that year brought a renewal of the terror which had come to characterize the peoples daily lives. With Soviet reoccupation of the Baltic countries in 1944. Communist tyranny resumed. and the deportations began again. By 1959. the populations of the Baltic States had declined to onesixth of their prewar levels. The end of Baltic freedom in the 1940s was especially bitter after they had fought so hard for freedom for centuries.
Keywords matched
deportations