Nel weekend ho letto un libretto molto interessante, recente regalo della mia Indrė: "Siberia. Mass deportations from Lithuania to the USSR" (2005), a cura di Dalia Kuodytė e Rokas Tracevskis, edito dal Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania di Vilnius (www.genocid.lt) che presto avrò il piacere di visitare. Il testo è corredato da molte immagini inquietanti.
Di seguito ne trascrivo ampi stralci, credo infatti che queste vicende debbano essere conosciute e diffuse il più possibile.
Un breve quadro introduttivo:
"This Lithuanian tragedy 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.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Lithuania was occupied three times: first by the USSR in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and finally by the USSR again in 1944.
Pre-war Lithuania's position of neutrality on the eve of WWII did not protect the Country from its sad fate. According to Lithuania State institutions, the damage caused by the Soviet occupation to the Republic of Lithuania in financial terms is 20 billion dollars. During Nazi and Soviet occupations, including 220,000 Holocausts victims, the losses of the population of Lithuania amounted to 33% of the total number of Country's population in 1940. Lithuania lost 1 million people to deportations, executions, incarceration, the murder of the political opposition, forced emigration and the consequent drop in the birth rate.
Of course Siberia was the major destination of Lithuanian prisoners, but other routes for modern-time slaves also existed, such as Gulags near the White Sea or cotton fileds in Tajikistan".
Le proporzioni numeriche della tragedia:
"Altogether, 600,000 prisoners were taken from the Soviet-occupied Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. There were some 10 million inhabitants in all three Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet occupation. Proportionately, the number of Baltic prisoners would be equal to a loss of 20 millions in the United States or 5 millions in Great Britain [...].
During 1940-1953, some 132,000 Lithuanians were deported to remote areas of the USSR: Siberia, the Arctic Circle zone and Central Asia [...]. More than 70% of the deportees were women and children. There were 50,000 women and 39,000 children deported to remote areas of the USSR. Some 30,000 of the deportees died there mostly because of slave work and starvation. Some 50,000 of the deportees were not able to return to Lithuania.
During the same period, another 200,000 people were thrown into prisons".
La prima ondata di deportazioni:
"There were several big waves of mass deportations to Siberia. There were some differences between them. In 1940-1941, the Soviet's task was decapitation of the Lithuanian nation by annihilating its cultural and political elite.
Arrests and deportations [...] started [...] on August 3, 1940 [...]
By August 1940, the Soviets and their local communist collaborators had arrested more than 1,300 Lithuanian citizens".
La seconda ondata e le liste anti-sovietiche:
"In October and November 1940 the Soviets ordered to draw up lists of anti-Soviet elements. This term included a wide spectrum of people: 1. Members of non-communist parties, including heretical communists; 2. Members of patriotic and religious organizations; 3. Former police and prison officials; 4. Former officers of tsarist and other armies; 5. Former officers of the Lithuanian and Polish armies; 6. Former volunteers who had joined anti-Soviet armies in 1918-1919; 7. Citizens of foreign States, representatives and employees of foreign firms, and employees of foreign embassies; 8. Those who corresponded with foreign Countries or consulates of foreign Countries as well as philatelists and those who know the Esperanto language; 9. Former high level officials; 10. Red Cross employees and émigrés from Poland; 11. Clergymen of all religions; 12. Bankers, members of aristocratic families and rich farmers.
The total number of persons registered as anti-Soviet elements reached tens of thousands of entries".
I giorni bui della terza grande ondata:
"June 14-18, 1941 were the dark days of the first massive arrest and deportation of the Lithuanian population. A cargo of 16,246 people were crammed into cattle cars. Moscow's instruction required to separate men from their families. Thus, 3,915 men were separated and transported to concentration camps in the Krasnoyarsk territory while 12,331 women, children and elderly people were transported to the territory of the Altai Mountains, the Komi Republic and to the Tomsk region.
40% of these deportees were children under 16. 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 the German-Soviet war".
Le deportazioni del 1944-1947:
"The Soviets resumed mass deportations to Siberia and other Eastern regions of the USSR after recapturing Lithuania from Nazi Germany in 1944. The partisan anti-Soviet war for democratic and independent Lithuania began in 1944. Some 22,000 Lithuanian partisans lost their lives in unequal war agaisnt the Soviet regular army and NKVD units. From 1949 the armed resistance started to wane. This guerrilla war continued until 1953. The last resistance fighter refused to surrender and shot himself in 1965.
Partisans, their supporters and non-armed opposition made up a big group among those who were deported in 1945-1947".
la grande ondata del 1948 e gli anni seguenti:
"The situation changed in 1948. The most extensive deportation from Lithuania was held on May 22 and 23, 1948. Over these two days 12,100 families, numbering over 41,000 people, were seized from their homes and exiled. In 1948, 50% of deportees were not accused of their relations with the armed guerrillas. Their official guilt was their social class, they were owners of private farms. In 1949, already two-thirds of the deportees belonged to this category while in 1951 they absolutely dominated the Soviet secret police's statistics".
Il Collettivismo e le ultime deportazioni:
"Such a change was due to the collectivization campaign in Lithuania's countryside. In 1948, the Soviets started to implement appropriating land and livestock. This resulted in establishment of collective farms. In 1950, some 90% of land was given to collective farms. Mass deportations continued until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953".
