Danubius International Conferences, 10th International Conference The Danube - Axis of European Identity

Unknown Deportation: June 13, 1941 in the Fate of the Ethnic Groups of Southern Bessarabia

Liliya Tsyganenko
Last modified: 2020-06-18

Abstract

A totalitarian communist state called the USSR brought a lot of suffering and misery to the peoples who lived within its borders. This was fully felt by the peoples who lived in Southern Bessarabia (Budzhak, Ukrainian Danube). The arrival of the Soviets in June 1940 to the lands of the region was marked by arrests, executions, and deportations, as a result of which representatives of various ethnic groups in the region (Ukrainians, Romanians, Jews, Bulgarians, Russians, Gagauz, Albanians, Greeks) suffered irreparable human losses. People were subjected to reprisals on falsified and fictitious charges. People and members of their families (including the elderly and children) were deported to Siberia and Central Asia, and their property was confiscated. The modern public knows a lot about the deportation of Crimean Tatars, Germans, Koreans, Poles, Finns, but few know about the deportation of representatives of different ethnic groups from Southern Bessarabia. It is time to talk about these events.