Foreign Minister Paet Commemorates Victims of 1941 Deportations

14.06.2011

No. 215-E

Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, who on this Day of Mourning will participate in a commemoration ceremony for those who were deported taking place in Pääsküla, said that 70 years ago over 10 000 Estonian were deported by a foreign totalitarian power in an attempt to wipe out the Estonian people. “They tried to break the spirit of our people through fear and terror, to erase the memories of our statehood and suppress the desire and dream to restore our lost independence. Practically every Estonian family was affected by the repressions of the Soviet regime,” stated the foreign minister.

Paet said that it is essential to remember, acknowledge, and condemn the crimes of the communist regime. “In remembering the June 1941 deportations – one of the most tragic events in Estonia’s history – we know that all the crimes of totalitarian regimes must be condemned, because a human life is priceless,” he asserted.

At 18.00 today Foreign Minister Paet is participating in the commemoration ceremony taking place at the deportation memorial at Pääsküla train station. On 14 June 1941 close to 500 people were loaded into railway cars in Pääsküla and sent to Siberia.

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