Joan Setka

Oh, we get specific. Their names are extensively documented in publicly searchable databases, often with details of their age, family and fate. Tens of thousands of names are engraved into stone at memorials. Those names are read out annually. Victims of Soviet mass deportations are mostly women and children, including babies, pregnant women, and separated children. In Estonia, the youngest victim was Anne Ojaäär, a 3 day old baby from Hiiumaa. The oldest victim was Maria Räägel, a 95 year old from Abja parish. They were snatched from their own homes in the middle of the night, packed into cattle wagons, and dispersed across remote parts of Russia in labour camps where they faced hunger, cold, and brutality. Many died on the way or shortly after arrival. Some were even settled in nuclear testing fallout zones. Soviet mass repression in the Baltics began in 1940, immediately after the Soviet Union invaded, first aimed at decapitating our states that are independent under international law and whose sovereignty and territorial integrity Russia had previously agreed to respect. Notice that 1940 doesn’t appear on Soviet war memorials? When this persecution began, the Soviets were still colluding with the Nazis to turn Europe into their spheres of influence, igniting the Second World War. They were still colluding in 1941 when they launched their first mass deportation in the Baltics to continue state decapitation. The second wave, Operation Priboi, was much broader. It was mostly targeted at rural communities, and ultimately aimed at breaking society and national identity, while providing more hard labour inside Russia. Around a quarter of the population fell into the Soviet category of ‘undesirables’. They targeted some of the same people that the Nazis had targeted in their own brutal occupation of the Baltics after the Nazis turned on their Soviet colluders. They even used some of the same wagons to load up their mutual enemies across Baltic societies. However, the snatching was chaotic. Many families were taken randomly just to fill quotas when the listed family couldn’t be found. Some were taken for just having similar names to those listed. Some local collaborators just wanted to settle scores. Deportations also continued regularly outside of these mass waves. It’s estimated that about 200,000 were deported just from the occupied Baltic countries & a further 6 million forcibly transferred in total by the Soviet Union, mostly based on ethnicity. Soviet persecution of entire nationalities were “monstrous acts” and “terrible felonies”. That’s not a Baltic take, by the way. Those are quotes from Khrushchev in his 1956 secret speech and the Supreme Soviet in its 1989 declaration. The Soviet Union officially acknowledged and condemned both its own collusion with the Nazis and its brutal targeting of entire nationalities, even while tankies today continue to defend the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its consequences. The Soviets were regretful, not out of compassion though. Some historians argue these crimes were a major political mistake. They deepened opposition to occupation. The topic was heavily censored but people never forgot. That anger eventually spilled out into the open during the Singing Revolution in the Baltics, which culminated with the annulment of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Tankies will never forgive the people of the Baltics for that. It led to the restoration of our modern, independent, vibrant, fully restored states we live in here today where we can freely discuss history while continuing to build a better future for everyone, and also stand up for those in Ukraine still facing this kind of brutality. It’s what Anne and Maria and so many others would have wanted. That’s why we always get specific.