Moldovan PM commemorates victims of first wave of Stalinist deportations

Chisinau, 13 June /MOLDPRES/- Prime Minister Pavel Filip and Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu today participated in a ceremony of commemorating the victims of the first wave of Stalinist deportations of 1941. Along with the officials, members of government and premier’s cabinet laid flowers at “Trenul durerii” (Train of Pain) monument, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.

Filip said that this day makes us thinking of a philosopher statement saying that if you do not have the memory of history, you risk repeating it. “I think there is no family in Moldova that is not related to those who were deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan. Therefore we have chosen as the direction of country’s development a vector that means other values, authentic democracy, freedom, fair competition. The European values we promote are very important, because they come to bring people freedom”, he said.

Today we mark 76 years since the first wave of Stalinist deportations in Bessarabia. Under official data, about 15,000 people were deported on the night of 12 June to 13 June 1941.

Two other waves of deportations followed in 1949 and 1951, after which almost 38,000 people suffered.