Stalinist Deportations in Bessarabia // Moldovan historian says those who cared most about language, history were deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan

Over 22,000 people from Bessarabia in June 1941 were torn from their homes and sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan, in one of the most violent episodes of the Soviet occupation. Intellectuals, officials, priests and wealthy peasants became 'enemies of the people' just for thinking freely, owning land or speaking Romanian. Historian Artur Lescu from WatchDog civil society community describes these deportations as a form of slow extermination, aimed at erasing every trace of national identity.

‘’The first to be deported were 22,000 people: intellectuals, landowners, mayors, teachers, students, small merchants. The goal was to make the Sovietization process of the newly occupied territory as swift as possible. To erase any memory that the territory between the Prut and the Dniester was an inalienable part of another state.’’

‘’If they could, the Soviet power would wipe out all the inhabitants of Bessarabia, bringing new people here. This is the essence of totalitarianism, creating enemies and the eternal fight against these imaginary enemies. Here, in Bessarabia, the intellectuals were the first to be listed as enemies.’’

According to the historian, ‘’the essence of totalitarianism is the perpetual creation of imaginary enemies.’’ In Bessarabia, the Soviet regime first found them among intellectuals, then among peasants who refused collectivization.

Lescu points out that for Bessarabia, the end of the Second World War did not mean peace, but the beginning of a series of tragedies: the organized famine of 1946, the waves of deportations in 1949 and 1951 and the constant terror against the population.

 





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