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- For Latvians, and other people who lived in Latvia in 1941, June 14 was and always will be the darkest of days. On that day, more than 15,000 people - men, women, children and the elderly - were rounded up and taken to Gulag death camps and deportation settlements. Many of them never came back. We must also remember that after June 14, 1941, came February 5, 1945, and March 25, 1949, when the number of those sent away to "lifetime settlements" exceeded 42,000. In the decades under the Soviet regime, crimes were deliberately hushed up. Only with the start of the Reawakening did the secret archives gradually become accessible, and the deportees were finally free to speak about their experiences. The Latvian National Archives are preparing a book "Deportees" with additional details about June 14, and including many other documents relating to the deportations. The historians' contribution is supplemented by personal remembrances. Now, Ilmars Salts' book join these memoirs. This book is one of those invaluable stories. Ilmars Salts offers a broad insight into the experiences of his own family and the circumstances under which they and others were forced to live in the settlements, the suffering they had to bear, the Siberian landscape, the subzero temperatures and harsh conditions, and the people he came to know there. It is worthy of note that this memoir alsocontains background information cross-referenced to a variety of documents and publications to provide a better over-all view of these tragic events.
- In English,
Hardcover, 284 pages, format 7-1/2" x 4-1/2"
- Riga, Latvia
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