“There are studies published, from whose tables and curved graphs everyone could understand how high price crimes of occupying powers had. Today we remember that the fates of particular people are behind the statistics. Today we learn from the stories told what emotions deportees had, what thoughts those people had. Humiliation and despair alternated with ignorance and fear about relatives, beloved ones, children, and elderly people,” admitted Raimonds Vējonis.
The President of Latvia expressed his gratitude to the Foundation for Support and Assistance to the Victims of Communist Terror “Children of Siberia” and its leader Dzintra Geka for the work made by collecting the life stories of the people, who were deported in their childhood from Latvia, and thus providing immeasurable contribution to externalization of national commemoration.
Today, June 14, Speaker of the Saeima Ināra Mūrniece, MP Laimdota Straujuma delivered speeches and the children of Siberia Aivars Janelsītis, Ilmārs Knaģis, and Velga Vītola shared their memories at conference “75 Years since Deportations of 14 June 1941” organized by the Foundation “Children of Siberia” at the House of Blackheads. In their turn, historian Kārlis Kangers, Chairperson of World Federation of Free Latvians Jānis Kukainis, journalist Pauls Raudseps, director of mass media group “Solikamsk Media” Jevgeniy Smirnov, editor of independent Internet portal “Medusa” Alexander Borzenko, and Chairperson of the Latvian Union of Politically Repressed Persons Gunārs Resnais convened their presentations.
The event also included solemn opening ceremony of book “We did not invent those times” by Ilmārs Knaģis and awarding ceremony of winners at essay contest “Children of Siberia 1941 / Exile Children 1944”.