Commemoration of the Victims of Communist Terror

latviaThe "legislative basis" for the deportation was the top-secret decisions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of January 29, 1949 and the instruction issued in February by the Ministry of State Security.

“Regarding the procedure for the deportation of certain categories of residents from the Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR and Estonian SSR” of March 17, 1949, Vilis Latsis, as Chairman, signed the decision of the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR. Military units of the Ministries of State Security and Interior have received top-secret order No. 0068 for the execution of the deportation of the population from the Baltic countries under the code name Priboi.

The deportation began on the night of March 24. From 25 to 28 March, 42,133 people, more than 2% of the pre-war population of Latvia, were deported to places of “special settlements” (mainly in the areas of Krasnoyarsk, Amur, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk). Among them were more than 10,990 children under the age of 16. Women and children under the age of 16 accounted for 73% of those deported.