Wave of deportations of 12-13 June 1941. President: only way to honor memory is to strongly oppose such crimes against right to life

Chisinau, June 13. /MOLDPRES/- In the night between June 12 and 13, 1941, over 6 thousand Moldovan families experienced the worst nightmare of their lives, being deported, the presidential press service has reported.

"In total, about 20 thousand people - priests, mayors, teachers, entrepreneurs from villages and cities - were picked up at gunpoint and taken in cattle cars to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Wives and children were separated from their husbands and fathers, there was not enough water, and as food they were often offered only salted fish", says President Maia Sandu in her message.

The head of state said that the most educated people, the intellectuals of our country, our grandfathers full of humanity, courage and love of the nation became "enemies of the people" overnight. The Stalinist regime was afraid of the householders who defended their nation's values and trampled on basic human rights and human dignity.

"It is a wound of our nation that is hard to heal. The past in which our grandparents or parents were taken to forced labor or were killed for what they were, and not because they had committed anything, still hurts us today. The only way to honor their memory is to strongly oppose such crimes against freedom and the right to life", says the head of state.

Maia Sandu also says that until recently, we all believed that these tragedies belonged to the past and that we will not allow history to repeat itself and whole families to be killed or deported from their own homes. "For more than a year, such crimes have been taking place in Ukraine, and the Kremlin regime has attacked a free nation simply because it wants to decide its own destiny. The Republic of Moldova will continue to help our neighbors fleeing the path of war. We will continue to be in solidarity with Ukraine, because we inherited this lesson from our grandparents - faith, humanity and love of freedom are our guiding values, through which we will find ourselves together, in the not too distant future, in the family of the civilized peoples of Europe, in the European Union", concluded the president.

Photo: National Archives Agency