OWTF COMENIUS 2012-2014

1. Soviet deportations
from Lithuania
1941 and 1944-1953

2. Beginning
This string of tragedies began in August 1939,
when Hitler and Stalin concluded a cynical
agreement that divided up Central Europe between
the two totalitarian countries. According to the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Lithuania was to fall into
the Soviet zone of influence.

4. The total number of persons registered as “anti-
Soviet elements” reached 320,000 entries. There
were teachers and professors, school and college
students, farmers, industry workers and craftsmen
among them.

6. The first deportation
In the June of 1941, about 17.6 thousand
residents of Lithuania were deported to the
Komi Republic, the Altai and Krasnoyarsk
territory and the Novosibirsk oblast. Forty
percent these deportees were children below
16 years old. More than half of the deported
died quickly. Pregnant women and babies
born in the cattle cars were the first victims –
they died in the trains.
The deportation process was interrupted by

7. The largest deportations
from Lithuania
• “Spring” (“Vesna”) – May 22-23rd,
1948
• “Surf” (“Priboj”) - March-April,
1949
• “Autumn” (“Osen”) - October 2-3,
1951

8. “Spring”
In 1948, May 22-
23rd, a
deportations
operation called
"Vesna" (“Spring”)
took place. It was
planned to deport
12 134 families
(48 thousand
people) to Yakutia
(later changed
into Buryat-
Mongolia

10. “Surf”
During the
1949 March-
April
deportations
(operation
"Priboj"), around
32 thousand
people (10
thousand
families) were
deported from
Lithuania. Its
aim was to
suppress the
wealthy

12. 1951 winter
Krasnoyarsk territory, Kamenka village

13. This is a living place of deportees in a forestry in Taiga.

14. A funeral ceremony Ready for school

15. Last days in Siberia

16. “Autumn”
While carrying
out the
deportation
operation called
"Osen"
(“Autumn”), on
October 2-3,
1951, more than
16 thousand
people (about
5.3 thousand
children among
them) were

17. How did the typical
deportation look?
The NKVD broke into
an apartment or
house and arrested
all the family
members.
In the railway station
as far as the eye
could see there were
men and women, the
elderly and the
disabled searching

18. What did the deportees do?
 Worked in salt and coal mines,
collective farms, woods.
 Cut wood and sailed rafts.
 Built roads and railways in Taiga.
 Worked in Fishing farms.

19. Consequences of the deportations
 Total 132,000 Lithuanians were deported
to remote areas of the USSR: Siberia, the
Arctic Circle zone and Central Asia.
 More than 70 percent of the deportees
were women and children.
 Around 50,000 of the deportees were not
able to return to Lithuania ever again.
 Every third Lithuanian became a victim of
Soviet terror.
 The lithuanians feel the moral harm of
these tragic events till nowadays.